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American think tank policy: Not for or by the peopleWed, 25 Feb 2015 13:08:14 -0500http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=63e_1424887393
SnusmumrikkenThe world seems more volatile, dangerous, and chaotic than
it was even a year ago. The smoldering embers of a potential holocaust are
nearly everywhere. With the America-EU-Russia divide, potential EU-Russia
integration has been rethought by the West.
In this report I will show one major reason for this course
reversal. I will also illustrate in so doing, that the policy forgers in
America, are nothing like the rest of us.
I watched the other day, some Russians burning an American
flag. Then a few hours later, I saw students in America burning an effigy of
Vladimir Putin. The events worried me greatly. I realized that our patience is
wearing thin, that our feelings are now raw. Americans, Europeans, and Russians
alike, grow weary of insult and injury perpetrated by leaders who seem to know
nothing of us at all. Instead of citizens blaming one another, perhaps
Americans and Russians can hold accountable the real perpetrators of today's
East-West crisis.
To begin let me quote from the great American historian,
author, and anti-war activist Howard Zinn who said:
"There has always been, and there is now, a profound
conflict of interest between the people and the government of the United
States."
In 1979 Zbigniew Brzezinski was then President Jimmy
Carter's National Security Adviser. He and other great thinkers in Washington
devised strategies that created for the Soviets, a world strategic emergency
just like the one we see today in Ukraine. The Soviet Union, baited into
invading Afghanistan, got mired in 10 years of useless conflict. As for
Zbigniew Brzezinski now, he is pointedly unapologetic that his theories have
been deployed in bringing down regimes, and forging American strategic aims,
for better or for worse. Brzezinski, along with other key figures like former Secretary
of State Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director Robert
Gates, and myriad disciples, they sit seemingly everlasting, like stone statues
in some Pantheon of American exclusivist control. It is their thinking that has
set us all at odds.
Washington's stinking thinking
There's a term that Brzezinski and other think tank brains
adhere to, it's a term the Council on Foreign Relations defines, a central strategic
idea known as the "Arc of Crisis." The concept is essentially an
American strategy aimed at surrounding Russia, an ongoing and devastatingly
negative fight against a convenient and well known foe. Brzezinski is used in
this piece as a sort of "poster boy" for all Washington elitist movers
and shakers. His books, such as; The Grand Chessboard, published in 1997, have
become templates for events like the Arab Spring, the resurgent Iraq fiasco,
and pointedly the Ukraine crisis. To understand today's crisis, one has to
investigate the players behind the White House.
Back in 1979 Brzezinski and his contemporaries like former
CIA Director and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, concocted a plan to bait the
Soviets into invading Afghanistan by giving aid to the Mujahedeen. The end
result was tens of thousands of Russians and Afghanis dead, millions displaced,
and for Brzezinski, he'd created a foreign policy "how to" for dealing
with Russia. Back then, as now, Moscow did its best to show the reasons for the
invasion, but to no avail. The mainstream media, and PR strategists, they
ensured the American people would never believe the Russians.
Brzezinski's documented intentions in the 1979 affair were
to ensure that the Afghanistan intervention; "led to the demoralization and
the breakup of the Soviet empire." And this, he admitted later, was
prioritized in his mind as, "at any cost." However, an unforeseen result
of funding the Mujahedeen back then, was the conflict America would have with
more familiar modern forms of extremism (see Osama bin
Laden), this was "a justified means" to the task of ending the
Soviet empire. This is another story though.
Today, Brzezinski's former pupils, and prot'eg'es, his
influential think tank comrades, their business interests, they range from his
son Ian Brzezinski, to ambassadors, industry titans, CIA and NSA directors,
hedge fund capitalists, and yes, US and foreign presidents. Within the ranks of
these think tanks we find Barack Obama advisers like Ambassador to China Jon
Huntsman (former Utah Governor). Interestingly, Huntsman was caught on amateur
video in Beijing allegedly lending support for the so-called Jasmine
Revolution. As for the administrations they've advised, this group of peers has
counseled everyone since Richard Nixon.
What are they thinking?
If policy by the elite were not a bad enough issue for
America, the revelation of the New York Times exposing cases where Washington
think tanks received massive funding from outside the United States should be.
Norway to Qatar and beyond, organizations like the Atlantic Council received
funds at an alarming rate before and after Barack Obama's inauguration. This graphic from the NYT piece paints a vivid picture of a
Washington disconnect from the American people, and intensifying ties to
foreign interests implicated in current crises. Outside interests essentially
lobbying for US strategy to serve their purposes!
Moving forward past the tens of millions funding Washington
think tanks, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and
organizations like the Brookings Institution are the playgrounds for the
Brzezinskis of the world. For your scrutiny, here's a short list of his
contemporaries, and some interesting affiliations:
Sam Nunn - Former US Senator and head of the Senate
Armed Services Committee - is a co-chairman &amp; CEO at CSIS now. Nunn was on
the board of directors of Hess oil company , Chevron Corporation, and Texaco up until
just recently. Interestingly, Hess sold off its Russia operations in April 2013
to Lukoil for $2.05 billion days after Nunn retired, and just five months prior
to the Euromaidan events in Kiev.
Richard Armitage - A CSIS trustee and the 13th United
States Deputy Secretary of State, Armitage was part of the so-called Plame
affair, admittedly having divulged classified knowledge that Valerie Plame
Wilson was a CIA operative. Colleagues claim when he was in Vietnam, Armitage
was part of the CIA's notorious Phoenix Program. He's been a close advisor, and
has had roles from Tehran before the Shah was deposed, to Afghanistan. Armitage
is currently on the board of directors of ConocoPhillips Oil Company. Conoco sold its interests in Russian oil in 2010.
Lois Dickson Rice - The mother of Barack Obama's
National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, is Director of the Think Tank Consortium
at Brookings. Both have been distinguished fellows of Brookings, and Rice the
junior also served as a Clinton adviser and Ambassador to the UN. Susan Rice's
long time mentor former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, was a student of
Zbigniew Brzezinski, and later served under him at the National Security
Council.
Henry Alfred Kissinger - This CSIS counselor and
trustee literally needs no introduction. The 56th U.S. Secretary of State has
been credited on the one side with recreating foreign relations intellectually
and strategically. Conversely, from the Vietnam era to Senator John McCain's
defense of the dignitary at the now notorious "Get out of here you low-life scum" hearings where Kissinger
was called a murderer, the aging think tank brain is part of the problem for
many.
Rex W. Tillerson - The Chairman and CEO of Exxon
Mobil is also a CSIS trustee. Tillerson came to prominence around the time the
company's holdings in Russia and the Caspian Sea grew in prominence. In 2011 he
signed an agreement with the Russians for drilling in the Arctic estimated to
be worth $300 billion. Exxon reportedly lost out in Siberia and in the Black
Sea because of the Ukraine crisis. However, factoring in vast natural gas deals
in Australia and North America, this puts Tillerson at the
head of think tank curiosities, and especially given Australia's Prime Minister
Tony Abbot's vehement anti-Russia temperament.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (R) and U.S.
Secretary of State John Kerry. (Reuters/Carolyn Kaster)
Brent Scowcroft - An advisor to presidents Nixon,
Ford, Lieutenant General Scowcroft had or does hold key positions within the
Washington "thinking elite's" ranks. Bush administration, Scowcroft was
Vice Chairman of Kissinger Associates, founder of The Forum for International
Policy think tank, co-chair of Aspen Strategy Group, a member of the Trilateral
Commission, Council on Foreign Relations, and board member of The Center for
Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), as well as The Atlantic Council of
the United States. His discussions of foreign policy with Zbigniew Brzezinski
led by journalist David Ignatius were published in the 2008 "America and the
World: Conversations on the Future of American Foreign Policy."
David M. Rubenstein - Rubenstein is on the Board of
Trustees of think tank the Brookings Institution, and Co-Founder and Co-CEO the
Carlyle Group. The Jewish billionaire was the domestic policy adviser to Jimmy
Carter before forming the equity firm that has offices in 33 countries, with
1,500 limited partners in 75 countries worldwide. The largest private equity
firm in the world according to Private Equity International ( PEI ),
the group has on its lists of acquisitions the media conglomerate Nielsen
Holdings N.V. Nielsen operates across over 100 countries and employs some
40,000 people worldwide. This fact leads nicely into where policy meets
information and the public.
I could go on, and on, and on, and on...
Thinking: Not of Us
Whether you're an Atlanta or Moscow resident, it's clear the
current crisis is not of our own making. In a very real way we are all victims
of a strange Orwellian plutocracy. Canadian Parliamentarian and author Chrystia
Freeland puts these modern plutocrats in perspective in her book; "Plutocrats:
The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else."
Speaking of the elite mindset, Freeland states:
"You don't do this in a kind of chortling, smoking your
cigar, conspiratorial thinking way. You do it by persuading yourself that what
is in your own personal self-interest is in the interests of everybody else."
The CSPAN segment below is at a Senate Armed Services
Committee hearing with several of today's key policy evangelists. Former
National Security Advisers Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft (both at
CSIS) testified using such deep intellectual language, an apparently exclusive
terminology and theory, as to forever cement their separateness form the rest
of us.
Listening to Scowcroft's "undermining of the Westphalia
Structure," I wonder how many who've never studied European history even
know of the events of 1648? Listening and watching, it's apparent these people
look at everything in an adversarial way. Take a look at one part of General
Scowcroft's testimony about governing people:
"For most of history, most of the people of the world did
not participate in the politics of their system. They were just like their
parents; they expected their children to be just like them, and so on. Now,
they are surrounded by information and they are responding, they are reacting
to it."
So a globalized and informed public is problematic? Perhaps
this is why we have been subjected to a cohesive mainstream media onslaught?
The massive PR efforts, billionaire media moguls and their part, these all make
more sense when media and advertising are considered. Scowcroft's "cyber
weapons," they're not just for Russia and China to use, America certainly
has her countermeasures! Right now Ukraine is in flames just because
Russia-friendly President Viktor Yanukovich said "no" to the EU in favor
of Vladimir Putin's Eurasian Economic Union? Or is it because Russia is still
Soviet to these ruling Washington thinkers? A partial answer lies in examining
Russia's policies toward the EU before the current crisis. Vladimir Putin's endeavors
to integrate with greater Europe, and toward a greater EU-Russia economic
integration even before 2010, I believe these policies scared some people to
death in Washington. Putin's view was summed up in policies he made when Prime
Minister. The so-called Lisbon to Vladivostok initiative laid out a mutually
beneficial integration with the EU which would have spelled peace and
prosperity for hundreds of millions. I quote from the English version via Spiegel International :
"We propose the creation of a harmonious economic
community stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok...In the future; we could even
consider a free trade zone or even more advanced forms of economic integration.
The result would be a unified continental market with a capacity worth
trillions of euro."
Now that we have at least a partial answer, the think tanks
possessed of old Cold War ideas saw Putin's initiatives as a threat. Regardless
of the prosperity and peace Europe and Russia might enjoy, the prime directive
for Washington has been to prevent Lisbon to Vladivostok.
Like some of you, I imagine an alternative reality. I can
see a million or more safe at home in Ukraine, instead of in refugee camps in
Russia. I can also envision parents playing with their children there, instead
of looking down tearfully into their tiny caskets in the Donbass. Maybe all our
problems are so simple after all? Maybe if the thinkers out there would really
think, instead of extending their own legend or bank accounts, then America and
Russia together might help change the whole world for the better! I wonder now,
as an American; "What if Vladimir Putin's Lisbon to Vladivostok plan were
successful?"
Instead we are left to the devices of brilliant rich people
and their meetings we're not invited to.
Phillip Butler for RT
Phil Butler is journalist and editor, and a partner at
the digital marketing firm, Pamil Visions PR. Phil contributes to the
Huffington Post, The Epoch Times, Japan Today, and many others. He's also a
policy and public relations analyst for Russia Today, as well as other
international media. You can find Phil's blog at http://www.phillip-butler.com.
http://rt.com/op-edge/235327-american-think-tank-policy-people/#.VO3zT1SrstI.facebook
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=63e_1424887393SnusmumrikkenAmerican think tank policy: Not for or by the peopleUSA, Russia, Ukraine, Zbigniew BrzezinskiAdam Curtis - A Film about how all of us have become Richard <span class="highlight">Nixon</span>.Mon, 02 Feb 2015 20:11:34 -0500http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=810_1422925852
gypsyhttp://www.liveleak.com/view?i=810_1422925852gypsyAdam Curtis - A Film about how all of us have become Richard <span class="highlight">Nixon</span>.nixon, politics, mediaPutin Aide Linked to Maidan KillingsTue, 24 Feb 2015 06:25:31 -0500http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=6f0_1424776677
Pezir
Paul Goble
February 20, 2015
Staunton, February 20 - In the classic film about Watergate, All the President's Men ,
Deep Throat warns that in unmasking a conspiracy, it is important not
to go too fast but rather to build from the outer rings into the center.
Otherwise, the conspirators will feel protected, and the possibility
that anything will be done to those really responsible is diminished.
And while it is just as obvious now to those with eyes to see
that Vladimir Putin has orchestrated the attack on Ukraine and
Ukrainians as it was that Richard Nixon organized the break-in and
cover-up, it is important to build the case against the Kremlin leader
in the same way as it was built against the disgraced American
president.
That is now happening.
Valentin Nalivaychenko, the head of the Ukrainian intelligence
service, said last night that his officers had statements from those
suspected of shooting Ukrainian demonstrators during the Maidan were
being directed by Vladislav Surkov, Putin's closest aide. (See here and here .)
In addition, Dmitry Muratov, the editor of Novaya Gazeta , said on Ekho Moskvy
that his paper now has in its possession a document which confirmed
that "the plan of war in Ukraine was developed in the administration of
the president of Russia," that is, by Putin's entourage.
The "document shows, Muratov said, that this plan was developed in
the Kremlin between February 4 and February 15 of last year, that is
before Viktor Yanukovych fled from Kyiv. And it specifies that Russia
must intervene in Ukraine lest it lose control of gas pipelines and a
major market.
The Kremlin document specifies that Moscow should exploit "the
centrifugal strivings of various regions" of Ukraine "with the goal of
initiating in one form or another the unification of its eastern regions
to Russia." First among these, the document says, according to
Muratov, should be Crimea and Kharkiv.
And the Kremlin plan also outlines Russia's diplomatic strategy.
Moscow must insist on talks to "resolve the crisis," even though it will
have been the source of the problem. Moscow must "demand federalization
or even confederalization" of Ukraine to block pro-Western groups in
that country.
Then, the document says, Crimea and other portions of southeastern
Ukraine must then be integrated into the Moscow-dominated customs union
and the last step must be their "unification" with Russia, because
Russia, its diplomats will argue, "is the only guarantor of economic
development and social stability."
At the very least, these developments in the latest "case" should
become the occasion for a dramatic expansion in the list of Russian
officials who should be prevented from travelling to Western countries.
But more than that, it should be the end of those who try to present
Putin as an innocent as far as Ukraine is concerned.
As the Watergate case showed 40 years ago, Putin will still have his
defenders much as Nixon did his. But the noose is tightening, and it is
long past time to recognize that Putin is guilty as charged whatever his
supporters say and that like Nixon he must be stopped before he does
any more damage.
http://www.interpretermag.com/putin-aide-linked-to-maidan-killings/
http://echo.msk.ru/programs/personalno/1494328-echo/http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=6f0_1424776677PezirPutin Aide Linked to Maidan KillingsRussia, Ukraine, MaidanFailing Tonkin Gulf Test on UkraineMon, 23 Feb 2015 10:44:56 -0500http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=719_1424705720
neinExclusive: As the Ukraine crisis worsens, Official Washington fumes only about "Russian aggression" - much as a half century ago, the Tonkin Gulf talk was all about "North Vietnamese aggression." But then and now there were other sides to the story - and questions that Congress needed to ask, writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
Many current members of Congress, especially progressives, may have envisioned how they would have handled the Tonkin Gulf crisis in 1964. In their imaginations, they would have asked probing questions and treated the dubious assertions from the White House with tough skepticism before voting on whether to give President Lyndon Johnson the authority to go to war in Vietnam.
If they had discovered what CIA and Pentagon insiders already knew - that the crucial second North Vietnamese "attack" on U.S. destroyers likely never happened and that the U.S. warships were not on some "routine" patrol but rather supporting a covert attack on North Vietnamese territory - today's members of Congress would likely see themselves joining Sens. Wayne Morse and Ernest Gruening as the only ones voting no.
President Lyndon Johnson announces "retaliatory" strike against North Vietnam in response to the supposed attacks on U.S. warships in the Gulf of Tonkin on Aug. 4, 1964. (Photo credit: LBJ Library)
Bravery in hindsight is always easy, but things feel quite different when Official Washington is locked in one of its pro-war "group thinks" when all the "important people" - from government to the media to think tanks - are pounding their chests and talking tough, as they are now on Russia and Ukraine.
Then, if you ask your probing questions and show your tough skepticism, you will have your patriotism, if not your sanity, questioned. You will be "controversialized," "marginalized," "pariahed." You will be called somebody's "apologist," whether it's Ho Chi Minh or Vladimir Putin.
And nobody wants to go through that because here's the truth about Official Washington: if you run with the pack - if you stay within the herd - you'll be safe. Even if things go terribly wrong - even if thousands of American soldiers die along with many, many more foreign civilians - you can expect little or no accountability. You will likely keep your job and may well get promoted. But if you stand in the way of the stampede, you'll be trampled.
After all, remember what happened to Morse and Gruening in their next elections. They both lost. As one Washington insider once told me about the U.S. capital's culture, "there's no honor in being right too soon. People just remember that you were out of step and crazy."
So, the choice often is to do the right thing and be crushed or to run with the pack and be safe. But there are moments when even the most craven member of Congress should look for whatever courage he or she has left and behave like a Morse or a Gruening, especially in a case like the Ukraine crisis which has the potential to spin out of control and into a nuclear confrontation.
Though the last Congress already whipped through belligerent resolutions denouncing "Russian aggression" and urging a military response - with only five Democrats and five Republicans dissenting - members of the new Congress could at least ascertain the facts that have driven the Ukraine conflict. Before the world lurches into a nuclear showdown, it might make a little sense to know what got us here.
The Nuland Phone Call
For instance, Congress could investigate the role of Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt in orchestrating the political crisis that led to a violent coup overthrowing Ukraine's constitutionally elected President Viktor Yanukovych a year ago.
What was the significance of the Nuland-Pyatt phone call in early February 2014 in which Nuland exclaimed "Fuck the EU!" and seemed to be handpicking the leaders of a new government? "Yats is the guy," she said referring to her favorite, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, with Pyatt musing about how to "midwife this thing"?
Among other questions that Congress could pose would be: What does U.S. intelligence know about the role of neo-Nazi extremists whose "sotin" militias infiltrated the Maidan protests and escalated the violence against police last February? NYT Still Pretends No Coup in Ukraine. "]
And, what does U.S. intelligence know about the mysterious snipers who brought the crisis to a boil on Feb. 20, 2014, by opening fire on police apparently from positions controlled by the extremist Right Sektor, touching off a violent clash that left scores dead, including police and protesters. Maidan Massacre. "]
Congress might also seek to determine what was the U.S. government's role over the next two days as three European countries - Poland, France and Germany - negotiated a deal with Yanukovych on Feb. 21 in which the embattled president agreed to Maidan demands for reducing his powers and accepting early elections to vote him out of office.
Instead of accepting this agreement, which might have averted a civil war, neo-Nazi and other Maidan militants attacked undefended government positions on Feb. 22 and forced officials to flee for their lives. Then, instead of standing by the European deal, the U.S. State Department quickly embraced the coup regime as "legitimate." And, surprise, surprise, Yatsenyuk emerged as the new Prime Minister.
What followed the coup was a Western propaganda barrage to make it appear that the Ukrainian people were fully behind this "regime change" even though many ethnic Russian Ukrainians in the east and south clearly felt disenfranchised by the unconstitutional ouster of their president.
A U.S. congressional inquiry also might ask: Was there any internal U.S. government assessment of the risks involved in allowing Nuland and Pyatt to pursue a "regime change" strategy on Russia's border? If so, did the assessment take into account the likely Russian reaction to having an ally next door overthrown by anti-Russian extremists with the intent to put Ukraine into NATO and potentially bring NATO armaments to Russia's frontyard?
Since the entire crisis has been presented to the American people within an anti-Yanukovyh/anti-Moscow propaganda paradigm - both by the U.S. mainstream news media and by the U.S. political/academic elites - there has been virtually no serious examination of the U.S. complicity. No one in Official Washington dares say anything but "Russian aggression."
Post-Coup Realities
Beyond the events surrounding the coup a year ago, there were other pivotal moments as this crisis careened out of control. For instance, what does U.S. intelligence know about the public opinion in Crimea prior to the peninsula's vote for secession from Ukraine and reunification with Russia on March 16?
The State Department portrayed the referendum as a "sham" but more objective observers acknowledge that the vote - although hasty - reflected a broad consensus inside Crimea to bail out of the failed Ukrainian state and rejoin a somewhat more functional Russia, where pensions are about three times higher and have a better chance of being paid.
Then, there was the massacre of ethnic Russians burned alive in Odessa's trade union building on May 2, with neo-Nazi militias again on the front lines. Like other topics that put the U.S.-backed coup regime in a bad light, the Odessa massacre quickly moved off the front pages and there has been little follow-up from international agencies that supposedly care about human rights. Ukraine's 'Dr. Strangelove' Reality. "]
The next major catastrophe associated with the Ukraine crisis was the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine on July 17. Again, the State Department rushed to a judgment blaming the ethnic Russian rebels and Russia for the tragedy that killed all 298 people onboard. However, I've been told that some U.S. intelligence analysts had a very different take on who was responsible, finding evidence implicating a rogue element of the Ukrainian government.
However, following the pattern of going silent whenever the Kiev coup regime might look bad, there was a sudden drop-off of interest in the MH-17 case, apparently not wanting to disrupt the usefulness of the earlier anti-Russian propaganda. When a Dutch-led inquiry into the crash issued an interim report last October, there was no indication that the Obama administration had shared its intelligence information. The Danger of an MH-17 Cold Case. "]
There also is little interest from Congress about what the MH-17 evidence shows. Even some progressive members are afraid to ask for a briefing from U.S. intelligence analysts, possibly because the answers might force a decision about whether to blow the whistle on a deception that involved Secretary of State John Kerry and other senior Obama administration officials.
This sort of cowardly misfeasance of duty marks the latest step in a long retreat from the days after the Vietnam War when Congress actually conducted some valuable investigations. In the 1970s, there were historic inquiries into Richard Nixon's Watergate scandal, led by Sen. Sam Ervin, and into CIA intelligence abuses by Sen. Frank Church.
A Downward Spiral
Since then, congressional investigations have become increasingly timid, such as the Iran-Contra and October Surprise investigations led by Rep. Lee Hamilton in the late 1980s and early 1990s, shying away from evidence of impeachable wrongdoing by President Ronald Reagan. Then, in the 1990s, a Republican-controlled Congress obsessed over trivial matters such as President Bill Clinton's personal finances and sex life.
Congressional oversight dysfunction reached a new low when President George W. Bush made baseless claims about Iraq's WMD and Saddam Hussein's intent to share nuclear, chemical and biological weapons with al-Qaeda. Rather than perform any meaningful due diligence, Congress did little more than rubber stamp Bush's claims by authorizing the Iraq War.
Years afterwards, there were slow-moving investigations into the WMD intelligence "failure" and into the torture practices that were used to help fabricate evidence for the fake WMD claims. Those investigations, however, were conducted behind closed doors and did little to educate the broader American public. There apparently wasn't much stomach to call the perpetrators of those abuses before televised hearings.
The only high-profile foreign-affairs hearings that have been held in recent years have been staged by House Republicans on the made-up scandal over an alleged cover-up of the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, a hot-button issue for the GOP base but essentially a non-story.
Now, the United States is hurtling toward a potential nuclear confrontation with Russia over Ukraine and this congressional ineptness could become an existential threat to the planet. The situation also has disturbing similarities to the Tonkin Gulf situation although arguably much, much more dangerous.
Misleading Americans to War
In 1964, there also was a Democratic president in Lyndon Johnson with Republicans generally to his right demanding a more aggressive military response to fight communism in Vietnam. So, like today with President Barack Obama in the White House and Republicans demanding a tougher line against Russia, there was little reason for Republicans to challenge Johnson when he seized on the Tonkin Gulf incident to justify a ratcheting up of attacks on North Vietnam. Meanwhile, also like today, Democrats weren't eager to undermine a Democratic president.
The result was a lack of oversight regarding the White House's public claims that the North Vietnamese launched an unprovoked attack on U.S. warships on Aug. 4, 1964, even though Pentagon and CIA officials realized very quickly that the initial alarmist reports about torpedoes in the water were almost surely false.
Daniel Ellsberg, who in 1964 was a young Defense Department official, recounts - in his 2002 book Secrets - how the Tonkin Gulf falsehoods took shape, first with the panicked cables from a U.S. Navy captain relaying confused sonar readings and then with that false storyline presented to the American people.
As Ellsberg describes, President Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara announced retaliatory airstrikes on Aug. 4, 1964, telling "the American public that the North Vietnamese, for the second time in two days, had attacked U.S. warships on 'routine patrol in international waters'; that this was clearly a 'deliberate' pattern of 'naked aggression'; that the evidence for the second attack, like the first, was 'unequivocal'; that the attack had been 'unprovoked'; and that the United States, by responding in order to deter any repetition, intended no wider war."
Ellsberg wrote: "By midnight on the fourth, or within a day or two, I knew that each one of those assurances was false." Yet, the White House made no effort to clarify the false or misleading statements. The falsehoods were left standing for several years while Johnson sharply escalated the war by dispatching a half million soldiers to Vietnam.
In August 1964, the Johnson administration also misled Congress about the facts of the Tonkin Gulf incident. Though not challenging that official story, some key members worried about the broad language in the Tonkin Gulf resolution authorizing the President "to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression ... including the use of armed force."
As Ellsberg noted, Sen. Gaylord Nelson tried to attach an amendment seeking to limit U.S. involvement to military assistance - not a direct combat role - but that was set aside because of Johnson's concern that it "would weaken the image of unified national support for the president's recent actions."
Ellsberg wrote, "Several senators, including George McGovern, Frank Church, Albert Gore , and the Republican John Sherman Cooper, had expressed the same concern as Nelson" but were assured that Johnson had no intention of expanding the war by introducing ground combat forces.
In other words, members of Congress failed to check out the facts and passed the fateful Tonkin Gulf resolution on Aug. 7, 1964. It should be noted, too, that the mainstream U.S. media of 1964 wasn't asking many probing questions either.
Looking back at that history, it's easy for today's members of Congress to think how differently they would have handled that rush to judgment, how they would have demanded to know the details of what the CIA and the Pentagon knew, how they wouldn't let themselves be duped by White House deceptions.
However, a half century later, the U.S. political/media process is back to the Tonkin Gulf moment, accepting propaganda themes as fact and showing no skepticism about the official line. Except today, Official Washington's war fever is not over a remote corner of Southeast Asia but over a country on the border of nuclear-armed Russia.
President Gollum's 'Precious' Secrets "; " NYT Whites Out Ukraine's Brownshirts "; and " Nuclear War and Clashing Ukraine Narratives. "]
SOURCE: https://consortiumnews.com/2015/02/21/failing-tonkin-gulf-test-on-ukraine/http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=719_1424705720neinFailing Tonkin Gulf Test on UkraineUSA, Ukraine, MH-17, MaidanStudy: U.S. regime has killed 20-30 million people since World War Two. Ukraine is country number 38! Sun, 22 Feb 2015 14:44:11 -0500http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=72d_1424633840
TruelStudy: U.S. regime has killed 20-30 million people since World War Two
Introduction http://www.sott.net/article/273517-Study-US-regime-has-killed-20-30-million-people-since-World-War-Two
After the catastrophic attacks of September 11 2001 monumental sorrow and a feeling of desperate and understandable anger began to permeate the American psyche. A few people at that time attempted to promote a balanced perspective by pointing out that the United States had also been responsible for causing those same feelings in people in other nations, but they produced hardly a ripple. Although Americans understand in the abstract the wisdom of people around the world empathizing with the suffering of one another, such a reminder of wrongs committed by our nation got little hearing and was soon overshadowed by an accelerated "war on terrorism."
But we must continue our efforts to develop understanding and compassion in the world. Hopefully, this article will assist in doing that by addressing the question "How many September 11ths has the United States caused in other nations since WWII?" This theme is developed in this report which contains an estimated numbers of such deaths in 37 nations as well as brief explanations of why the U.S. is considered culpable.
The causes of wars are complex. In some instances nations other than the U.S. may have been responsible for more deaths, but if the involvement of our nation appeared to have been a necessary cause of a war or conflict it was considered responsible for the deaths in it. In other words they probably would not have taken place if the U.S. had not used the heavy hand of its power. The military and economic power of the United States was crucial.
This study reveals that U.S. military forces were directly responsible for about 10 to 15 million deaths during the Korean and Vietnam Wars and the two Iraq Wars. The Korean War also includes Chinese deaths while the Vietnam War also includes fatalities in Cambodia and Laos.
The American public probably is not aware of these numbers and knows even less about the proxy wars for which the United States is also responsible. In the latter wars there were between nine and 14 million deaths in Afghanistan, Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, East Timor, Guatemala, Indonesia, Pakistan and Sudan.
But the victims are not just from big nations or one part of the world. The remaining deaths were in smaller ones which constitute over half the total number of nations. Virtually all parts of the world have been the target of U.S. intervention.
The overall conclusion reached is that the United States most likely has been responsible since WWII for the deaths of between 20 and 30 million people in wars and conflicts scattered over the world.
To the families and friends of these victims it makes little difference whether the causes were U.S. military action, proxy military forces, the provision of U.S. military supplies or advisors, or other ways, such as economic pressures applied by our nation. They had to make decisions about other things such as finding lost loved ones, whether to become refugees, and how to survive.
And the pain and anger is spread even further. Some authorities estimate that there are as many as 10 wounded for each person who dies in wars. Their visible, continued suffering is a continuing reminder to their fellow countrymen.
It is essential that Americans learn more about this topic so that they can begin to understand the pain that others feel. Someone once observed that the Germans during WWII "chose not to know." We cannot allow history to say this about our country. The question posed above was "How many September 11ths has the United States caused in other nations since WWII?" The answer is: possibly 10,000.
Comments on Gathering These Numbers
Generally speaking, the much smaller number of Americans who have died is not included in this study, not because they are not important, but because this report focuses on the impact of U.S. actions on its adversaries.
An accurate count of the number of deaths is not easy to achieve, and this collection of data was undertaken with full realization of this fact. These estimates will probably be revised later either upward or downward by the reader and the author. But undoubtedly the total will remain in the millions.
The difficulty of gathering reliable information is shown by two estimates in this context. For several years I heard statements on radio that three million Cambodians had been killed under the rule of the Khmer Rouge. However, in recent years the figure I heard was one million. Another example is that the number of persons estimated to have died in Iraq due to sanctions after the first U.S. Iraq War was over 1 million, but in more recent years, based on a more recent study, a lower estimate of around a half a million has emerged.
Often information about wars is revealed only much later when someone decides to speak out, when more secret information is revealed due to persistent efforts of a few, or after special congressional committees make reports
Both victorious and defeated nations may have their own reasons for underreporting the number of deaths. Further, in recent wars involving the United States it was not uncommon to hear statements like "we do not do body counts" and references to "collateral damage" as a euphemism for dead and wounded. Life is cheap for some, especially those who manipulate people on the battlefield as if it were a chessboard.
To say that it is difficult to get exact figures is not to say that we should not try. Effort was needed to arrive at the figures of 6six million Jews killed during WWI, but knowledge of that number now is widespread and it has fueled the determination to prevent future holocausts. That struggle continues.
The author can be contacted at jlucas511@woh.rr.com.
37 victim nations
Afghanistan
The U.S. is responsible for between 1 and 1.8 million deaths during the war between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan, by luring the Soviet Union into invading that nation. (1,2,3,4)
The Soviet Union had friendly relations its neighbor, Afghanistan, which had a secular government. The Soviets feared that if that government became fundamentalist this change could spill over into the Soviet Union.
"Regret what?" he said. "That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it?" (7)
The CIA spent 5 to 6 billion dollars on its operation in Afghanistan in order to bleed the Soviet Union. (1,2,3) When that 10-year war ended over a million people were dead and Afghan heroin had captured 60% of the U.S. market. (4)
The U.S. has been responsible directly for about 12,000 deaths in Afghanistan many of which resulted from bombing in retaliation for the attacks on U.S. property on September 11, 2001. Subsequently U.S. troops invaded that country. (4)
Angola
An indigenous armed struggle against Portuguese rule in Angola began in 1961. In 1977 an Angolan government was recognized by the U.N., although the U.S. was one of the few nations that opposed this action. In 1986 Uncle Sam approved material assistance to UNITA, a group that was trying to overthrow the government. Even today this struggle, which has involved many nations at times, continues.
U.S. intervention was justified to the U.S. public as a reaction to the intervention of 50,000 Cuban troops in Angola. However, according to Piero Gleijeses, a history professor at Johns Hopkins University the reverse was true. The Cuban intervention came as a result of a CIA - financed covert invasion via neighboring Zaire and a drive on the Angolan capital by the U.S. ally, South Africa1,2,3). (Three estimates of deaths range from 300,000 to 750,000 (4,5,6)
Argentina: See South America: Operation Condor
Bangladesh: See Pakistan
Bolivia
Hugo Banzer was the leader of a repressive regime in Bolivia in the 1970s. The U.S. had been disturbed when a previous leader nationalized the tin mines and distributed land to Indian peasants. Later that action to benefit the poor was reversed.
Banzer, who was trained at the U.S.-operated School of the Americas in Panama and later at Fort Hood, Texas, came back from exile frequently to confer with U.S. Air Force Major Robert Lundin. In 1971 he staged a successful coup with the help of the U.S. Air Force radio system. In the first years of his dictatorship he received twice as military assistance from the U.S. as in the previous dozen years together.
A few years later the Catholic Church denounced an army massacre of striking tin workers in 1975, Banzer, assisted by information provided by the CIA, was able to target and locate leftist priests and nuns. His anti-clergy strategy, known as the Banzer Plan, was adopted by nine other Latin American dictatorships in 1977. (2) He has been accused of being responsible for 400 deaths during his tenure. (1)
Also see: South America: Operation Condor
Brazil: See South America: Operation Condor
Cambodia
U.S. bombing of Cambodia had already been underway for several years in secret under the Johnson and Nixon administrations, but when President Nixon openly began bombing in preparation for a land assault on Cambodia it caused major protests in the U.S. against the Vietnam War.
There is little awareness today of the scope of these bombings and the human suffering involved.
Immense damage was done to the villages and cities of Cambodia, causing refugees and internal displacement of the population. This unstable situation enabled the Khmer Rouge, a small political party led by Pol Pot, to assume power. Over the years we have repeatedly heard about the Khmer Rouge's role in the deaths of millions in Cambodia without any acknowledgement being made this mass killing was made possible by the the U.S. bombing of that nation which destabilized it by death , injuries, hunger and dislocation of its people.
So the U.S. bears responsibility not only for the deaths from the bombings but also for those resulting from the activities of the Khmer Rouge - a total of about 2.5 million people. Even when Vietnam latrer invaded Cambodia in 1979 the CIA was still supporting the Khmer Rouge. (1,2,3)
Also see Vietnam
Chad
An estimated 40,000 people in Chad were killed and as many as 200,000 tortured by a government, headed by Hissen Habre who was brought to power in June, 1982 with the help of CIA money and arms. He remained in power for eight years. (1,2)
Human Rights Watch claimed that Habre was responsible for thousands of killings. In 2001, while living in Senegal, he was almost tried for crimes committed by him in Chad. However, a court there blocked these proceedings. Then human rights people decided to pursue the case in Belgium, because some of Habre's torture victims lived there. The U.S., in June 2003, told Belgium that it risked losing its status as host to NATO's headquarters if it allowed such a legal proceeding to happen. So the result was that the law that allowed victims to file complaints in Belgium for atrocities committed abroad was repealed. However, two months later a new law was passed which made special provision for the continuation of the case against Habre.
Chile
The CIA intervened in Chile's 1958 and 1964 elections. In 1970 a socialist candidate, Salvador Allende, was elected president. The CIA wanted to incite a military coup to prevent his inauguration, but the Chilean army's chief of staff, General Rene Schneider, opposed this action. The CIA then planned, along with some people in the Chilean military, to assassinate Schneider. This plot failed and Allende took office. President Nixon was not to be dissuaded and he ordered the CIA to create a coup climate: "Make the economy scream," he said.
What followed were guerilla warfare, arson, bombing, sabotage and terror. ITT and other U.S. corporations with Chilean holdings sponsored demonstrations and strikes. Finally, on September 11, 1973 Allende died either by suicide or by assassination. At that time Henry Kissinger, U.S. Secretary of State, said the following regarding Chile: "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist because of the irresponsibility of its own people." (1)
During 17 years of terror under Allende's successor, General Augusto Pinochet, an estimated 3,000 Chileans were killed and many others were tortured or "disappeared." (2,3,4,5)
Also see South America: Operation Condor
China
An estimated 900,000 Chinese died during the Korean War. For more information, See: Korea.
Colombia
One estimate is that 67,000 deaths have occurred from the 1960s to recent years due to support by the U.S. of Colombian state terrorism. (1)
According to a 1994 Amnesty International report, more than 20,000 people were killed for political reasons in Colombia since 1986, mainly by the military and its paramilitary allies. Amnesty alleged that "U.S.- supplied military equipment, ostensibly delivered for use against narcotics traffickers, was being used by the Colombian military to commit abuses in the name of "counter-insurgency." (2) In 2002 another estimate was made that 3,500 people die each year in a U.S. funded civilian war in Colombia. (3)
In 1996 Human Rights Watch issued a report "Assassination Squads in Colombia" which revealed that CIA agents went to Colombia in 1991 to help the military to train undercover agents in anti-subversive activity. (4,5)
In recent years the U.S. government has provided assistance under Plan Colombia. The Colombian government has been charged with using most of the funds for destruction of crops and support of the paramilitary group.
Cuba
In the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba on April 18, 1961 which ended after 3 days, 114 of the invading force were killed, 1,189 were taken prisoners and a few escaped to waiting U.S. ships. (1) The captured exiles were quickly tried, a few executed and the rest sentenced to thirty years in prison for treason. These exiles were released after 20 months in exchange for $53 million in food and medicine.
Some people estimate that the number of Cuban forces killed range from 2,000, to 4,000. Another estimate is that 1,800 Cuban forces were killed on an open highway by napalm. This appears to have been a precursor of the Highway of Death in Iraq in 1991 when U.S. forces mercilessly annihilated large numbers of Iraqis on a highway. (2)
Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire)
The beginning of massive violence was instigated in this country in 1879 by its colonizer King Leopold of Belgium. The Congo's population was reduced by 10 million people over a period of 20 years which some have referred to as "Leopold's Genocide." (1) The U.S. has been responsible for about a third of that many deaths in that nation in the more recent past. (2)
In 1960 the Congo became an independent state with Patrice Lumumba being its first prime minister. He was assassinated with the CIA being implicated, although some say that his murder was actually the responsibility of Belgium. (3) But nevertheless, the CIA was planning to kill him. (4) Before his assassination the CIA sent one of its scientists, Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, to the Congo carrying "lethal biological material" intended for use in Lumumba's assassination. This virus would have been able to produce a fatal disease indigenous to the Congo area of Africa and was transported in a diplomatic pouch.
Much of the time in recent years there has been a civil war within the Democratic Republic of Congo, fomented often by the U.S. and other nations, including neighboring nations. (5)
In April 1977, Newsday reported that the CIA was secretly supporting efforts to recruit several hundred mercenaries in the U.S. and Great Britain to serve alongside Zaire's army. In that same year the U.S. provided $15 million of military supplies to the Zairian President Mobutu to fend off an invasion by a rival group operating in Angola. (6)
In May 1979, the U.S. sent several million dollars of aid to Mobutu who had been condemned 3 months earlier by the U.S. State Department for human rights violations. (7) During the Cold War the U.S. funneled over 300 million dollars in weapons into Zaire (8,9) $100 million in military training was provided to him. (2) In 2001 it was reported to a U.S. congressional committee that American companies, including one linked to former President George Bush Sr., were stoking the Congo for monetary gains. There is an international battle over resources in that country with over 125 companies and individuals being implicated. One of these substances is coltan, which is used in the manufacture of cell phones. (2)
Dominican Republic
In 1962, Juan Bosch became president of the Dominican Republic. He advocated such programs as land reform and public works programs. This did not bode well for his future relationship with the U.S., and after only 7 months in office, he was deposed by a CIA coup. In 1965 when a group was trying to reinstall him to his office President Johnson said, "This Bosch is no good." Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Mann replied "He's no good at all. If we don't get a decent government in there, Mr. President, we get another Bosch. It's just going to be another sinkhole." Two days later a U.S. invasion started and 22,000 soldiers and marines entered the Dominican Republic and about 3,000 Dominicans died during the fighting. The cover excuse for doing this was that this was done to protect foreigners there. (1,2,3,4)
East Timor
In December 1975, Indonesia invaded East Timor. This incursion was launched the day after U.S. President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had left Indonesia where they had given President Suharto permission to use American arms, which under U.S. law, could not be used for aggression. Daniel Moynihan, U.S. ambassador to the UN. said that the U.S. wanted "things to turn out as they did." (1,2) The result was an estimated 200,000 dead out of a population of 700,000. (1,2)
Sixteen years later, on November 12, 1991, two hundred and seventeen East Timorese protesters in Dili, many of them children, marching from a memorial service, were gunned down by Indonesian Kopassus shock troops who were headed by U.S.- trained commanders Prabowo Subianto (son in law of General Suharto) and Kiki Syahnakri. Trucks were seen dumping bodies into the sea. (5)
El Salvador
The civil war from 1981 to1992 in El Salvador was financed by $6 billion in U.S. aid given to support the government in its efforts to crush a movement to bring social justice to the people in that nation of about 8 million people. (1)
During that time U.S. military advisers demonstrated methods of torture on teenage prisoners, according to an interview with a deserter from the Salvadoran army published in the New York Times. This former member of the Salvadoran National Guard testified that he was a member of a squad of twelve who found people who they were told were guerillas and tortured them. Part of the training he received was in torture at a U.S. location somewhere in Panama. (2)
About 900 villagers were massacred in the village of El Mozote in 1981. Ten of the twelve El Salvadoran government soldiers cited as participating in this act were graduates of the School of the Americas operated by the U.S. (2) They were only a small part of about 75,000 people killed during that civil war. (1)
According to a 1993 United Nations' Truth Commission report, over 96 % of the human rights violations carried out during the war were committed by the Salvadoran army or the paramilitary deaths squads associated with the Salvadoran army. (3)
That commission linked graduates of the School of the Americas to many notorious killings. The New York Times and the Washington Post followed with scathing articles. In 1996, the White House Oversight Board issued a report that supported many of the charges against that school made by Rev. Roy Bourgeois, head of the School of the Americas Watch. That same year the Pentagon released formerly classified reports indicating that graduates were trained in killing, extortion, and physical abuse for interrogations, false imprisonment and other methods of control. (4)
Grenada
The CIA began to destabilize Grenada in 1979 after Maurice Bishop became president, partially because he refused to join the quarantine of Cuba. The campaign against him resulted in his overthrow and the invasion by the U.S. of Grenada on October 25, 1983, with about 277 people dying. (1,2) It was fallaciously charged that an airport was being built in Grenada that could be used to attack the U.S. and it was also erroneously claimed that the lives of American medical students on that island were in danger.
Guatemala
In 1951 Jacobo Arbenz was elected president of Guatemala. He appropriated some unused land operated by the United Fruit Company and compensated the company. (1,2) That company then started a campaign to paint Arbenz as a tool of an international conspiracy and hired about 300 mercenaries who sabotaged oil supplies and trains. (3) In 1954 a CIA-orchestrated coup put him out of office and he left the country. During the next 40 years various regimes killed thousands of people.
In 1999 the Washington Post reported that an Historical Clarification Commission concluded that over 200,000 people had been killed during the civil war and that there had been 42,000 individual human rights violations, 29,000 of them fatal, 92% of which were committed by the army. The commission further reported that the U.S. government and the CIA had pressured the Guatemalan government into suppressing the guerilla movement by ruthless means. (4,5)
According to the Commission between 1981 and 1983 the military government of Guatemala - financed and supported by the U.S. government - destroyed some four hundred Mayan villages in a campaign of genocide. (4)
One of the documents made available to the commission was a 1966 memo from a U.S. State Department official, which described how a "safe house" was set up in the palace for use by Guatemalan security agents and their U.S. contacts. This was the headquarters for the Guatemalan "dirty war" against leftist insurgents and suspected allies. (2)
Haiti
From 1957 to 1986 Haiti was ruled by Papa Doc Duvalier and later by his son. During that time their private terrorist force killed between 30,000 and 100,000 people. (1) Millions of dollars in CIA subsidies flowed into Haiti during that time, mainly to suppress popular movements, (2) although most American military aid to the country, according to William Blum, was covertly channeled through Israel.
Reportedly, governments after the second Duvalier reign were responsible for an even larger number of fatalities, and the influence on Haiti by the U.S., particularly through the CIA, has continued. The U.S. later forced out of the presidential office a black Catholic priest, Jean Bertrand Aristide, even though he was elected with 67% of the vote in the early 1990s. The wealthy white class in Haiti opposed him in this predominantly black nation, because of his social programs designed to help the poor and end corruption. (3) Later he returned to office, but that did not last long. He was forced by the U.S. to leave office and now lives in South Africa.
Honduras
In the 1980s the CIA supported Battalion 316 in Honduras, which kidnapped, tortured and killed hundreds of its citizens. Torture equipment and manuals were provided by CIA Argentinean personnel who worked with U.S. agents in the training of the Hondurans. Approximately 400 people lost their lives. (1,2) This is another instance of torture in the world sponsored by the U.S. (3)
Battalion 316 used shock and suffocation devices in interrogations in the 1980s. Prisoners often were kept naked and, when no longer useful, killed and buried in unmarked graves. Declassified documents and other sources show that the CIA and the U.S. Embassy knew of numerous crimes, including murder and torture, yet continued to support Battalion 316 and collaborate with its leaders." (4)
Honduras was a staging ground in the early 1980s for the Contras who were trying to overthrow the socialist Sandinista government in Nicaragua. John D. Negroponte, currently Deputy Secretary of State, was our embassador when our military aid to Honduras rose from $4 million to $77.4 million per year. Negroponte denies having had any knowledge of these atrocities during his tenure. However, his predecessor in that position, Jack R. Binns, had reported in 1981 that he was deeply concerned at increasing evidence of officially sponsored/sanctioned assassinations. (5)
Hungary
In 1956 Hungary, a Soviet satellite nation, revolted against the Soviet Union. During the uprising broadcasts by the U.S. Radio Free Europe into Hungary sometimes took on an aggressive tone, encouraging the rebels to believe that Western support was imminent, and even giving tactical advice on how to fight the Soviets. Their hopes were raised then dashed by these broadcasts which cast an even darker shadow over the Hungarian tragedy." (1) The Hungarian and Soviet death toll was about 3,000 and the revolution was crushed. (2)
Indonesia
In 1965, in Indonesia, a coup replaced General Sukarno with General Suharto as leader. The U.S. played a role in that change of government. Robert Martens,a former officer in the U.S. embassy in Indonesia, described how U.S. diplomats and CIA officers provided up to 5,000 names to Indonesian Army death squads in 1965 and checked them off as they were killed or captured. Martens admitted that "I probably have a lot of blood on my hands, but that's not all bad. There's a time when you have to strike hard at a decisive moment." (1,2,3) Estimates of the number of deaths range from 500,000 to 3 million. (4,5,6)
From 1993 to 1997 the U.S. provided Jakarta with almost $400 million in economic aid and sold tens of million of dollars of weaponry to that nation. U.S. Green Berets provided training for the Indonesia's elite force which was responsible for many of atrocities in East Timor. (3)
Iran
Iran lost about 262,000 people in the war against Iraq from 1980 to 1988. (1) See Iraq for more information about that war.
On July 3, 1988 the U.S. Navy ship, the Vincennes, was operating withing Iranian waters providing military support for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. During a battle against Iranian gunboats it fired two missiles at an Iranian Airbus, which was on a routine civilian flight. All 290 civilian on board were killed. (2,3)
Iraq
A. The Iraq-Iran War lasted from 1980 to 1988 and during that time there were about 105,000 Iraqi deaths according to the Washington Post. (1,2)
According to Howard Teicher, a former National Security Council official, the U.S. provided the Iraqis with billions of dollars in credits and helped Iraq in other ways such as making sure that Iraq had military equipment including biological agents This surge of help for Iraq came as Iran seemed to be winning the war and was close to Basra. (1) The U.S. was not adverse to both countries weakening themselves as a result of the war, but it did not appear to want either side to win.
B: The U.S.-Iraq War and the Sanctions Against Iraq extended from 1990 to 2003.
Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990 and the U.S. responded by demanding that Iraq withdraw, and four days later the U.N. levied international sanctions.
Iraq had reason to believe that the U.S. would not object to its invasion of Kuwait, since U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, had told Saddam Hussein that the U.S. had no position on the dispute that his country had with Kuwait. So the green light was given, but it seemed to be more of a trap.
As a part of the public relations strategy to energize the American public into supporting an attack against Iraq the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the U.S. falsely testified before Congress that Iraqi troops were pulling the plugs on incubators in Iraqi hospitals. (1) This contributed to a war frenzy in the U.S.
The U.S. air assault started on January 17, 1991 and it lasted for 42 days. On February 23 President H.W. Bush ordered the U.S. ground assault to begin. The invasion took place with much needless killing of Iraqi military personnel. Only about 150 American military personnel died compared to about 200,000 Iraqis. Some of the Iraqis were mercilessly killed on the Highway of Death and about 400 tons of depleted uranium were left in that nation by the U.S. (2,3)
Other deaths later were from delayed deaths due to wounds, civilians killed, those killed by effects of damage of the Iraqi water treatment facilities and other aspects of its damaged infrastructure and by the sanctions.
In 1995 the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N. reported that U.N sanctions against on Iraq had been responsible for the deaths of more than 560,000 children since 1990. (5)
Leslie Stahl on the TV Program 60 Minutes in 1996 mentioned to Madeleine Albright, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. "We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And - and you know, is the price worth it?" Albright replied "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price - we think is worth it." (4)
In 1999 UNICEF reported that 5,000 children died each month as a result of the sanction and the War with the U.S. (6)
Richard Garfield later estimated that the more likely number of excess deaths among children under five years of age from 1990 through March 1998 to be 227,000 - double those of the previous decade. Garfield estimated that the numbers to be 350,000 through 2000 (based in part on result of another study). (7)
However, there are limitations to his study. His figures were not updated for the remaining three years of the sanctions. Also, two other somewhat vulnerable age groups were not studied: young children above the age of five and the elderly.
All of these reports were considerable indicators of massive numbers of deaths which the U.S. was aware of and which was a part of its strategy to cause enough pain and terror among Iraqis to cause them to revolt against their government.
C: Iraq-U.S. War started in 2003 and has not been concluded
Just as the end of the Cold War emboldened the U.S. to attack Iraq in 1991 so the attacks of September 11, 2001 laid the groundwork for the U.S. to launch the current war against Iraq. While in some other wars we learned much later about the lies that were used to deceive us, some of the deceptions that were used to get us into this war became known almost as soon as they were uttered. There were no weapons of mass destruction, we were not trying to promote democracy, we were not trying to save the Iraqi people from a dictator.
The total number of Iraqi deaths that are a result of our current Iraq against Iraq War is 654,000, of which 600,000 are attributed to acts of violence, according to Johns Hopkins researchers. (1,2)
Since these deaths are a result of the U.S. invasion, our leaders must accept responsibility for them.
Israeli-Palestinian War
About 100,000 to 200,000 Israelis and Palestinians, but mostly the latter, have been killed in the struggle between those two groups. The U.S. has been a strong supporter of Israel, providing billions of dollars in aid and supporting its possession of nuclear weapons. (1,2)
Korea, North and South
The Korean War started in 1950 when, according to the Truman administration, North Korea invaded South Korea on June 25th. However, since then another explanation has emerged which maintains that the attack by North Korea came during a time of many border incursions by both sides. South Korea initiated most of the border clashes with North Korea beginning in 1948. The North Korea government claimed that by 1949 the South Korean army committed 2,617 armed incursions. It was a myth that the Soviet Union ordered North Korea to attack South Korea. (1,2)
The U.S. started its attack before a U.N. resolution was passed supporting our nation's intervention, and our military forces added to the mayhem in the war by introducing the use of napalm. (1)
During the war the bulk of the deaths were South Koreans, North Koreans and Chinese. Four sources give deaths counts ranging from 1.8 to 4.5 million. (3,4,5,6) Another source gives a total of 4 million but does not identify to which nation they belonged. (7)
John H. Kim, a U.S. Army veteran and the Chair of the Korea Committee of Veterans for Peace, stated in an article that during the Korean War "the U.S. Army, Air Force and Navy were directly involved in the killing of about three million civilians - both South and North Koreans - at many locations throughout Korea...It is reported that the U.S. dropped some 650,000 tons of bombs, including 43,000 tons of napalm bombs, during the Korean War." It is presumed that this total does not include Chinese casualties.
Another source states a total of about 500,000 who were Koreans and presumably only military. (8,9)
Laos
From 1965 to 1973 during the Vietnam War the U.S. dropped over two million tons of bombs on Laos - more than was dropped in WWII by both sides. Over a quarter of the population became refugees. This was later called a "secret war," since it occurred at the same time as the Vietnam War, but got little press. Hundreds of thousands were killed. Branfman make the only estimate that I am aware of , stating that hundreds of thousands died. This can be interpeted to mean that at least 200,000 died. (1,2,3)
U.S. military intervention in Laos actually began much earlier. A civil war started in the 1950s when the U.S. recruited a force of 40,000 Laotians to oppose the Pathet Lao, a leftist political party that ultimately took power in 1975.
Also see Vietnam
Nepal
Between 8,000 and 12,000 Nepalese have died since a civil war broke out in 1996. The death rate, according to Foreign Policy in Focus, sharply increased with the arrival of almost 8,400 American M-16 submachine guns (950 rpm) and U.S. advisers. Nepal is 85 percent rural and badly in need of land reform. Not surprisingly 42 % of its people live below the poverty level. (1,2)
In 2002, after another civil war erupted, President George W. Bush pushed a bill through Congress authorizing $20 million in military aid to the Nepalese government. (3)
Nicaragua
In 1981 the Sandinistas overthrew the Somoza government in Nicaragua, (1) and until 1990 about 25,000 Nicaraguans were killed in an armed struggle between the Sandinista government and Contra rebels who were formed from the remnants of Somoza's national government. The use of assassination manuals by the Contras surfaced in 1984. (2,3)
The U.S. supported the victorious government regime by providing covert military aid to the Contras (anti-communist guerillas) starting in November, 1981. But when Congress discovered that the CIA had supervised acts of sabotage in Nicaragua without notifying Congress, it passed the Boland Amendment in 1983 which prohibited the CIA, Defense Department and any other government agency from providing any further covert military assistance. (4)
But ways were found to get around this prohibition. The National Security Council, which was not explicitly covered by the law, raised private and foreign funds for the Contras. In addition, arms were sold to Iran and the proceeds were diverted from those sales to the Contras engaged in the insurgency against the Sandinista government. (5) Finally, the Sandinistas were voted out of office in 1990 by voters who thought that a change in leadership would placate the U.S., which was causing misery to Nicaragua's citizenry by it support of the Contras.
Pakistan
In 1971 West Pakistan, an authoritarian state supported by the U.S., brutally invaded East Pakistan. The war ended after India, whose economy was staggering after admitting about 10 million refugees, invaded East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and defeated the West Pakistani forces. (1)
Millions of people died during that brutal struggle, referred to by some as genocide committed by West Pakistan. That country had long been an ally of the U.S., starting with $411 million provided to establish its armed forces which spent 80% of its budget on its military. $15 million in arms flowed into W. Pakistan during the war. (2,3,4)
Three sources estimate that 3 million people died and (5,2,6) one source estimates 1.5 million. (3)
Panama
In December, 1989 U.S. troops invaded Panama, ostensibly to arrest Manuel Noriega, that nation's president. This was an example of the U.S. view that it is the master of the world and can arrest anyone it wants to. For a number of years before that he had worked for the CIA, but fell out of favor partially because he was not an opponent of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. (1) It has been estimated that between 500 and 4,000 people died. (2,3,4)
Paraguay: See South America: Operation Condor
Philippines
The Philippines were under the control of the U.S. for over a hundred years. In about the last 50 to 60 years the U.S. has funded and otherwise helped various Philippine governments which sought to suppress the activities of groups working for the welfare of its people. In 1969 the Symington Committee in the U.S. Congress revealed how war material was sent there for a counter-insurgency campaign. U.S. Special Forces and Marines were active in some combat operations. The estimated number of persons that were executed and disappeared under President Fernando Marcos was over 100,000. (1,2)
South America: Operation Condor
This was a joint operation of 6 despotic South American governments (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay) to share information about their political opponents. An estimated 13,000 people were killed under this plan. (1)
It was established on November 25, 1975 in Chile by an act of the Interamerican Reunion on Military Intelligence. According to U.S. embassy political officer, John Tipton, the CIA and the Chilean Secret Police were working together, although the CIA did not set up the operation to make this collaboration work. Reportedly, it ended in 1983. (2)
On March 6, 2001 the New York Times reported the existence of a recently declassified State Department document revealing that the United States facilitated communications for Operation Condor. (3)
Sudan
Since 1955, when it gained its independence, Sudan has been involved most of the time in a civil war. Until about 2003 approximately 2 million people had been killed. It not known if the death toll in Darfur is part of that total.
Human rights groups have complained that U.S. policies have helped to prolong the Sudanese civil war by supporting efforts to overthrow the central government in Khartoum. In 1999 U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright met with the leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) who said that she offered him food supplies if he would reject a peace plan sponsored by Egypt and Libya.
In 1978 the vastness of Sudan's oil reservers was discovered and within two years it became the sixth largest recipient of U.S, military aid. It's reasonable to assume that if the U.S. aid a government to come to power it will feel obligated to give the U.S. part of the oil pie.
A British group, Christian Aid, has accused foreign oil companies of complicity in the depopulation of villages. These companies - not American - receive government protection and in turn allow the government use of its airstrips and roads.
In August 1998 the U.S. bombed Khartoum, Sudan with 75 cruise m'issiles. Our government said that the target was a chemical weapons factory owned by Osama bin Laden. Actually, bin Laden was no longer the owner, and the plant had been the sole supplier of pharmaceutical supplies for that poor nation. As a result of the bombing tens of thousands may have died because of the lack of medicines to treat malaria, tuberculosis and other diseases. The U.S. settled a lawsuit filed by the factory's owner. (1,2)
Uruguay: See South America: Operation Condor
Vietnam
In Vietnam, under an agreement several decades ago, there was supposed to be an election for a unified North and South Vietnam. The U.S. opposed this and supported the Diem government in South Vietnam. In August, 1964 the CIA and others helped fabricate a phony Vietnamese attack on a U.S. ship in the Gulf of Tonkin and this was used as a pretext for greater U.S. involvement in Vietnam. (1)
During that war an American assassination operation,called Operation Phoenix, terrorized the South Vietnamese people, and during the war American troops were responsible in 1968 for the mass slaughter of the people in the village of My Lai.
According to a Vietnamese government statement in 1995 the number of deaths of civilians and military personnel during the Vietnam War was 5.1 million. (2)
Since deaths in Cambodia and Laos were about 2.7 million (See Cambodia and Laos) the estimated total for the Vietnam War is 7.8 million.
The Virtual Truth Commission provides a total for the war of 5 million, (3) and Robert McNamara, former Secretary Defense, according to the New York Times Magazine says that the number of Vietnamese dead is 3.4 million. (4,5)
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia was a socialist federation of several republics. Since it refused to be closely tied to the Soviet Union during the Cold War, it gained some suport from the U.S. But when the Soviet Union dissolved, Yugoslavia's usefulness to the U.S. ended, and the U.S and Germany worked to convert its socialist economy to a capitalist one by a process primarily of dividing and conquering. There were ethnic and religious differences between various parts of Yugoslavia which were manipulated by the U.S. to cause several wars which resulted in the dissolution of that country.
From the early 1990s until now Yugoslavia split into several independent nations whose lowered income, along with CIA connivance, has made it a pawn in the hands of capitalist countries. (1) The dissolution of Yugoslavia was caused primarily by the U.S. (2)
Here are estimates of some, if not all, of the internal wars in Yugoslavia. All wars: 107,000; (3,4)
Bosnia and Krajina: 250,000; (5) Bosnia: 20,000 to 30,000; (5) Croatia: 15,000; (6) and
Kosovo: 500 to 5,000. (7)
Notes
Afghanistan
1. Mark Zepezauer, Boomerang (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 2003), p.135.
2. Chronology of American State Terrorism
3. Soviet War in Afghanistan
4. Mark Zepezauer, The CIA's Greatest Hits (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1994), p.76
5. U.S Involvement in Afghanistan, Wikipedia
6. 'The CIA's Intervention in Afghanistan, Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski', Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 15-21 January 1998, Posted at globalresearch.ca 15 October 2001
7. William Blum, Rogue State (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 2000), p.5
8. UnknownNews.net
Angola
1. Howard W. French, "From Old Files, a New Story of the U.S. Role in the Angolan War", New York Times 3/31/02
2. 'Angolan Update', American Friends Service Committee FS, 11/1/99 flyer.
3. Norman Solomon, War Made Easy, (John Wiley &amp; Sons, 2005) p. 82-83.
4. Lance Selfa, 'U.S. Imperialism, A Century of Slaughter', International Socialist Review, Issue 7, Spring 1999 (as appears on thirdworldtraveler.com )
5. Jeffress Ramsay, Africa , (Dushkin/McGraw Hill Guilford Connecticut), 1997, p. 144-145.
6. Mark Zepezauer, The CIA's Greatest Hits (Monroe, Maine: Cohttp://www.liveleak.com/view?i=72d_1424633840TruelStudy: U.S. regime has killed 20-30 million people since World War Two. Ukraine is country number 38! US terrorism.UkraineMother who was tortured for seven hours and slashed across the throat Sun, 15 Feb 2015 19:02:42 -0500http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=be0_1424044430
lil_mama. Natalie Allman, 29, was battered with a dumb-bell by Jason Hughes, 42 TA soldier Hughes also slit her throat in 2012 attack to make her look 'ugly' Their twin boys saw the attack, and were found covered in blood by police Ms Allman must send Hughes updates on boys under parental rights laws If she does not she could be held in contempt of court and jailed A mother who was tortured for seven hours in front of her twin sons has been forced to write to her attacker, or face the prospect of being sent to jail herself.
Natalie Allman, 29, was battered with a dumb-bell and slashed across the throat by Jason Hughes, 42, because he wanted to make her look 'ugly' after she dumped him.
Former Territorial Army soldier Hughes was jailed for nine years in 2012 for the brutal attack at the couple's home in Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire - which was witnessed by their twin sons.
But now a judge has ordered Ms Allman to send three letters a year to Hughes, updating him on their five-year-old boys and including photographs of the children every Easter, September and December.
The order has been made under parental rights laws, and if Ms Allman does not comply she will be in contempt of court - and could be imprisoned.
'We are the victims, not him. I thought he was going to kill me that night for no reason and my boys saw that. They were terrified,' she told the Sunday People.
'I'm so angry that the law still defends his parental rights and that he is still being allowed to control us from behind bars.'
Ms Allman had met Hughes, who was already a father-of-two, in 2008, when they were both home carers.
They became engaged in 2010, and she discovered that she was expecting twins.
But Hughes had a drink problem that was spiralling out of control and in February 2011 Ms Allman ended their relationship just two months before they had planned to marry.
She has said previously that he was drinking as much as a litre of vodka day or six litres of cider.
He lashed out after she told him she was seeing someone else.
On February 3, 2011, as Ms Allman lay in bed, Hughes launched the terrifying seven-hour attack on his ex, attempting to smother her with a pillow before repeatedly bludgeoning her with a dumb bell.
Ms Allman had told Winchester Crown Court how she had woken up to find Hughes sitting astride her hitting her with the weight.
He then used the blade from a mini-tool to slash a 20cm-long cut across her throat - narrowly missing her major artery by a few millimetres.
Hughes, who had received training with bayonets and knives as part of his Army training, only let Ms Allman call an ambulance after seven hours.
When officers arrived at the home they found the couple's terrified sons, then two, in bed with their mother and covered in blood.
She was rushed to Hereford Hospital and Hughes was arrested by officers at the scene.
Ms Allman had suffered eight wounds to her head and five fractures to her face bones. She also needed cosmetic surgery to rebuild her throat.
Hughes was jailed for nine years after he was convicted of malicious wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm at Worcester Crown Court on August 2, 2012.
Defending Hughes, Abigail Nixon said if Hughes had intended to kill Natalie then he could have done so because of his military training.
She told the court: 'His intention was to cause a hideous scar she could not hide if she had dressed up to look pretty.
'He was trying to make her look ugly to other men.'
After Hughes was jailed, Ms Allman began to rebuild her life, and the following year gave birth to a son, Aaron, with her new partner Wayne Young, 43.
However, in January 2014 she was told that Hughes was applying for a Residence and Contact Order under Section 8 of the Children Act of 1989, and was asking for six letters a year - as well as phone calls from the twins on their birthdays and at Christmas.
Ms Allman spent lb3,000 on legal fees to fight the demand, but a court ruled that she would have to send three letters a year - updating Hughes on the children's school progress, health, and emotional development.
She was also ordered to send an up-to-date photograph of the boys, while Hughes was given permission to send them cards at birthdays and Christmas, and a letter at the start of each school year.
Although she is sickened by the letters, which are delivered to her father's home to stop Hughes from learning of Ms Allman's new address, Ms Allman has been told she must keep them in case her sons want to read them when they are older.
She said the letters from Hughes detailed how he had been allowed to play with an X Box games console, and told of his prison job as a bee-keeper.
In the court order, Ms Allman was told that if she does not comply she could be held in contempt of court - and may be imprisoned or fined.
She said: 'I couldn't believe it. I could end up being split up from my children and sent to prison when he was the one who attacked me. I'm the one being treated like a criminal.'
..
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=be0_1424044430lil_mamaMother who was tortured for seven hours and slashed across the throat recent, items, lil_mama,mother,tortured,slashed,throatNuclear War and Clashing Ukraine NarrativesFri, 13 Feb 2015 09:04:05 -0500http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e0a_1423835905
neinExclusive: America and Russia have two nearly opposite narratives on Ukraine, which is more an indictment of the U.S. news media which feigns objectivity but disseminates what amounts to propaganda. These divergent narratives are driving the world toward a possible nuclear crisis, writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
The U.S. government and mainstream media are swaggering toward a possible nuclear confrontation with Russia over Ukraine without any of the seriousness that has informed this sort of decision-making throughout the nuclear age. Instead, Official Washington seems possessed by a self-righteous goofiness that could be the prelude to the end of life on this planet.
Nearly across the U.S. political spectrum, there is a pugnacious "group think" which has transformed what should have been a manageable political dispute in Ukraine into some morality play where U.S. politicians and pundits blather on about how the nearly year-old coup regime in Kiev "shares our values" and how America must be prepared to defend this regime militarily.
Janika Merilo, an Estonian brought into the Ukrainian government to oversee foreign investments. (From her Facebook page via Zero Hedge)
Jaanika Merilo, an Estonian brought into the Ukrainian government to oversee foreign investments. (A photo released on the Internet by Merilo via DanceswithBears)
Though I'm told that President Barack Obama personally recognizes how foolhardy this attitude is, he has made no significant move to head off the craziness and, indeed, has tolerated provocative actions by his underlings, such as neocon Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland's scheming with coup plotters to overthrow Ukraine's elected President Viktor Yanukovych last February.
Obama also has withheld from the American people intelligence information that undercuts some of the more extreme claims that his administration has made. For instance, I'm told that he has detailed intelligence reporting on both the mysterious sniper attack that preceded the putsch nearly a year ago and the shoot-down of the Malaysia Airlines Flights 17 that deepened the crisis last summer. But he won't release the findings.
More broadly over the last year, Obama's behavior - ranging from his initial neglect of the Ukraine issue, as Nuland's coup plotting unfolded, to his own participation in the tough talk, such as boasting during his State of the Union address that he had helped put the Russian economy "in tatters" - ranks as one of the most irresponsible performances by a U.S. president.
Given the potential stakes of nuclear war, none of the post-World War II presidents behaved as recklessly as Obama has, which now includes allowing his administration officials to talk loosely about sending military support to an unstable regime in Kiev that includes neo-Nazis who have undertaken death-squad operations against ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine.
U.S. Gen. Philip Breedlove, who is commander of NATO, declared last November that - regarding supplying military support for the Kiev government - "nothing at this time is off the table." Breedlove is now pushing actively to send lethal U.S. military equipment to fend off an offensive by ethnic Russian rebels in the east.
I'm told that the Russians fear that U.S. officials are contemplating placing Cruise missiles in Ukraine or otherwise introducing advanced weaponry that Moscow regards as a direct threat to its national security. Whether or not the Russians are being alarmist, these fears are affecting their own decision-making.
None of the nuclear-age presidents - not Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton or even George W. Bush - would have engaged in such provocative actions on Russia's borders, though some surely behaved aggressively in overthrowing governments and starting wars farther away.
Even Ronald Reagan, an aggressive Cold Warrior, kept his challenges to the Soviet Union in areas that were far less sensitive to its national security than Ukraine. He may have supported the slaughter of leftists in Central America and Africa or armed Islamic fundamentalists fighting a Soviet-backed government in Afghanistan, but he recognized the insanity of a military showdown with Moscow in Eastern Europe.
After the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, U.S. presidents became more assertive, pushing NATO into the former Warsaw Pact nations and, under President Clinton, bombing a Russian ally in Serbia, but that came at a time when Russia was essentially flat on its back geopolitically.
Perhaps the triumphalism of that period is still alive especially among neocons who reject President Vladimir Putin's reassertion of Russia's national pride. These Washington hardliners still feel that they can treat Moscow with disdain, ignoring the fact that Russia maintains a formidable nuclear arsenal and is not willing to return to the supine position of the 1990s.
In 2008, President George W. Bush - arguably one of the most reckless presidents of the era - backed away from a confrontation with Russia when Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, a neocon favorite, drew the Russians into a border conflict over South Ossetia. Despite some war talk from the likes of Vice President Dick Cheney and Sen. John McCain, President Bush showed relative restraint.
Imbalanced Narrative
But Obama has failed to rein in his administration's war hawks and has done nothing to correct the biased narrative that his State Department has fed to the equally irresponsible mainstream U.S. news media. Since the Ukraine crisis began in fall of 2013, the New York Times and other major U.S. news outlets have provided only one side of the story, openly supporting the interests of the pro-European western Ukrainians over the ethnic Russian eastern Ukrainians.
The bias is so strong that the mainstream media has largely ignored the remarkable story of the Kiev regime willfully dispatching Nazi storm troopers to kill ethnic Russians in the east, something that hasn't happened in Europe since World War II.
For Western news organizations that are quick to note the slightest uptick in neo-Nazism in Europe, there has been a willful blindness to Kiev's premeditated use of what amount to Nazi death squads undertaking house-to-house killings in eastern Ukraine. Seeing No Neo-Nazi Militias in Ukraine. "]
The Russian government has repeatedly protested these death-squad operations and other crimes committed by the Kiev regime, but the U.S. mainstream media is so in the tank for the western Ukrainians that it has suppressed this aspect of the crisis, typically burying references to the neo-Nazi militias at the end of stories or dismissing these accounts as "Russian propaganda."
With this ugly reality hidden from the U.S. public, Obama's State Department has been able to present a white-hat-vs.-black-hat narrative to the crisis. So, while Russians saw a constitutionally elected government on their border overthrown by a U.S.-backed coup last February - and then human rights atrocities inflicted on ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine - the American people heard only about wonderful pro-American "reformers" in Kiev and the evil pro-Russian "minions" trying to destroy "democracy" at Putin's bidding.
This distorted American narrative has represented one of the most unprofessional and dangerous performances in the history of modern U.S. journalism, rivaling the false conventional wisdom about Iraq's WMD except in this case the media propaganda is aimed at a country in Russia that really does have weapons of mass destruction.
The Russians also have noted the arrival of financially self-interested Americans, including Vice President Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden and Ukraine's new Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, reminding the Russians of the American financial experts who descended on Moscow with their "shock therapy" in the 1990s, "reforms" that enriched a few well-connected oligarchs but impoverished millions of average Russians.
Ukraine's Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko.
Ukraine's Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko.
Jaresko, a former U.S. diplomat who took Ukrainian citizenship in December 2014 to become Finance Minister, had been in charge of a U.S.-taxpayer-financed $150 million Ukrainian investment fund which involved substantial insider dealings, including paying a management firm that Jaresko created more than $1 million a year in fees, even as the $150 million apparently dwindled to less than $100 million.
Jaresko also has been involved in a two-year-long legal battle with her ex-husband to gag him from releasing information about apparent irregularities in the handling of the U.S. money. Jaresko went into Chancery Court in Delaware to enforce a non-disclosure clause against her ex-husband, Ihor Figlus, and got a court order to silence him.
This week, when I contacted George Pazuniak, Figlus's lawyer about Jaresko's aggressive enforcement of the non-disclosure agreement, he told me that "at this point, it's very difficult for me to say very much without having a detrimental effect on my client."
With Jaresko now being hailed as a Ukrainian "reformer" who - in the words of New York Times' columnist Thomas L. Friedman - "shares our values," one has to wonder why she has fought so hard to shut up her ex-husband regarding possible revelations about improper handling of U.S. taxpayer money. Ukraine's Made-in-USA Finance Minister. "]
More Interested Parties
The Russians also looked askance at the appointment of Estonian Jaanika Merilo as the latest foreigner to be brought inside the Ukrainian government as a "reformer." Merilo, a Jaresko associate, is being put in charge of attracting foreign investments but her photo spreads look more like someone interested in some rather kinky partying.
Janika Merilo, the Estonian being put in charge of arranging foreign investments into Ukraine. (From her Facebook page via Zero Hedge)
Jaanika Merilo, the Estonian being put in charge of arranging foreign investments in Ukraine. (A photo released by Merilo on the Internet via DanceswithBears)
The Russians are aware, too, of prominent Americans circling around the potential plunder of Ukraine. For instance, Hunter Biden was named to the board of directors of Burisma Holdings, Ukraine's largest private gas firm. Burisma is also a shadowy Cyprus-based company linked to Privat Bank.
Privat Bank is controlled by the thuggish billionaire oligarch Ihor Kolomoysky, who was appointed by the Kiev regime to be governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, a south-central province of Ukraine. Kolomoysky has helped finance the paramilitary forces killing ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine.
And, Burisma has been lining up well-connected lobbyists, some with ties to Secretary of State John Kerry, including Kerry's former Senate chief of staff David Leiter, according to lobbying disclosures. As Time magazine reported , "Leiter's involvement in the firm rounds out a power-packed team of politically-connected Americans that also includes a second new board member, Devon Archer, a Democratic bundler and former adviser to John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign. Both Archer and Hunter Biden have worked as business partners with Kerry's son-in-law, Christopher Heinz, the founding partner of Rosemont Capital, a private-equity company." The Whys Behind the Ukraine Crisis. "]
So, the Russians have a decidedly different view of the Ukrainian "reforms" than much of the U.S. media does. But I'm told that the Russians would be willing to tolerate these well-connected Americans enriching themselves in Ukraine and even having Ukraine expand its economic relations with the European Union.
But the Russians have drawn a red line at the prospect for the expansion of NATO forces into Ukraine and the continued killing of ethnic Russians at the hands of neo-Nazi death squads. Putin is demanding that those paramilitary forces be disarmed.
Besides unleashing these right-wing militias on the ethnic Russians, the Kiev government has moved to punish the people living in the eastern sectors by cutting off access to banks and other financial services. It also has become harder and more dangerous for ethnic Russians to cross into territory controlled by the Kiev authorities. Many are turned back and those who do get through face the risk of being taken and killed by the neo-Nazi militias.
These conditions have left the people in the Donetsk and Luhansk areas - the so-called Donbass region on Russia's border - dependent on relief supplies from Russia. Meanwhile, the Kiev regime - pumped up by prospects of weapons from Washington as well as more money - has toughened its tone with vows to crush the eastern rebellion once and for all.
Russia's Hardening Line
The worsening situation in the east and the fear of U.S. military weapons arriving in the west have prompted a shift in Moscow's view of the Ukraine crisis, including a readiness to resupply the ethnic Russian forces in eastern Ukraine and even provide military advisers.
These developments have alarmed European leaders who find themselves caught in the middle of a possible conflict between the United States and Russia. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande rushed to Kiev and then Moscow this week to discuss possible ways to defuse the crisis.
The hardening Russian position now seeks, in effect, a division of Ukraine into two autonomous zones, the east and the west with a central government that maintains the currency and handles other national concerns. But I'm told that Moscow might still accept the earlier idea of a federated Ukraine with greater self-governance by the different regions.
Putin also does not object to Ukraine building closer economic ties to Europe and he offered a new referendum in Crimea on whether the voters still want to secede from Ukraine and join Russia, said a source familiar with the Kremlin's thinking. But Putin's red lines include no NATO expansion into Ukraine and protection for ethnic Russians by disarming the neo-Nazi militias, the source said.
If such an arrangement or something similar isn't acceptable and if the killing of ethnic Russians continues, the Kremlin would support a large-scale military offensive from the east that would involve "taking Kiev," according to the source.
A Russian escalation of that magnitude would likely invite a vigorous U.S. response, with leading American politicians and pundits sure to ratchet up demands for a military counterstrike against Russia. If Obama were to acquiesce to such bellicosity - to avoid being called "weak" - the world could be pushed to the brink of nuclear war.
Who's to Blame?
Though the State Department and the mainstream U.S. media continue to put all the blame on Russia, the fact that the Ukraine crisis has reach such a dangerous crossroads reveals how reckless the behavior of Official Washington has been over the past year.
Nuland and other U.S. officials took an internal Ukrainian disagreement over how quickly it should expand ties to Europe - while seeking to retain its historic relations with Russia - and turned that fairly pedestrian political dispute into a possible flashpoint for a nuclear war.
At no time, as this crisis has evolved over the past year, did anyone of significance in Official Washington, whether in government or media, stop and contemplate whether this issue was worth risking the end of life on the planet. Instead, all the American people have been given is a steady diet of anti-Yanukovych and anti-Putin propaganda.
Though constitutionally elected, Yanukovych was depicted as a corrupt tyrant who had a pricy sauna in his official mansion. Though Putin had just staged the Winter Olympics in Sochi, signaling his desire for Russia to integrate more with the West, he was portrayed as either a new-age imperial czar or the second coming of Hitler - if not worse because he occasionally would ride on a horse while not wearing a shirt.
Further, the U.S. news media refused to conduct a serious investigation into the evidence that Nuland and other U.S. officials had helped destabilize Yanukovych's government with the goal of achieving another neocon "regime change."
Nuland, who personally urged on anti-Yanukovych protests in Kiev, discussed with U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt in early February 2014 who should lead the new government - "Yats is the guy," she said, referring to Arseniy Yatsenyuk - and how to "glue this thing."
After weeks of mounting tensions and worsening violence, the coup occurred on Feb. 22, 2014, when well-organized neo-Nazi and other right-wing militias from western Ukraine overran presidential buildings forcing officials to flee for their lives. With Yanukovych ousted, Yatsenyuk soon became Prime Minister. When Is a Putsch a Putsch. " ]
Many ethnic Russians in southern and eastern Ukraine, who had strongly supported Yanukovych, refused to accept the new U.S.-backed order in Kiev. Crimean officials and voters moved to secede from Ukraine and rejoin Russia, a move that Putin accepted because of Crimea's historic ties to Russia and his fear that the Russian naval base at Sevastopol might be handed to NATO.
The resistance spread to eastern Ukraine where other ethnic Russians took up arms against the coup regime in Kiev, which responded with that it called an "anti-terrorist operation" against the east. To bolster the weak Ukrainian army, Internal Affairs Minister Arsen Avakov dispatched neo-Nazi and other "volunteer" militias to spearhead the attacks.
After the deaths of more than 5,000 people, a shaky cease-fire was announced in September, but - amid complaints about neo-Nazi death squads operating in government-controlled areas and with life deteriorating in rebel-controlled towns and cities - the ethnic Russians launched an offensive in January, using Russian-supplied weapons to expand their control of territory.
In reaction, U.S. pundits, including columnists and editors of the New York Times and the Washington Post, called for dispatching U.S. aid to the Kiev forces, including proposals for lethal weaponry to deter Putin's "aggression." Members of Congress and members of the Obama administration have joined the chorus.
On Feb. 2, the New York Times reported "With Russian-backed separatists pressing their attacks in Ukraine, NATO's military commander, Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, now supports providing defensive weapons and equipment to Kiev's beleaguered forces, and an array of administration and military officials appear to be edging toward that position, American officials said. ... President Obama has made no decisions on providing such lethal assistance."
That same day, the lead Times editorial was entitled "Mr. Putin Resumes His War" and continued with the theme about "Russian aggression" and the need "to increase the cost" if Russia demands "a permanent rebel-held enclave."
On Feb. 3, the Washington Post ran an editorial entitled "Help for Ukraine. Defensive weapons could deter Russia in a way sanctions won't." The editorial concluded that Putin "will stop only if the cost to his regime is sharply raised - and quickly."
A new war fever gripped Washington and no one wanted to be viewed as "soft" or to be denounced as a "Putin apologist." Amid this combination of propaganda, confusion and tough-guy-ism - and lacking the tempering wisdom about war and nuclear weapons that restrained earlier U.S. presidents - a momentum lurched toward a nuclear showdown over Ukraine that could put all life on earth in jeopardy.
SOURCE: https://consortiumnews.com/2015/02/06/nuclear-war-and-clashing-ukraine-narratives/http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e0a_1423835905neinNuclear War and Clashing Ukraine NarrativesUkraineJim Rogers on Opportunities in Russia &amp; Other Hated MarketsWed, 11 Feb 2015 21:42:25 -0500http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c3a_1423708046
FlintArrow
Original Source: http://www.internationalman.com/articles/jim-rogers-on-opportunities-in-russia-and-other-hated-markets
by Nick Giambruno , Senior Editor - InternationalMan.com - Casey Research, LLC.
Nick Giambruno: Welcome, Jim. As you know, Doug Casey and I travel the world surveying crisis markets, and we always like to get your take on things. Today I want to talk to you about Russia, which is a very hated market right now. What are your thoughts on Russia in general and on Russian stocks in particular?
Jim Rogers: Well, I'm optimistic about the future of Russia. I was optimistic before this war started in Ukraine, which was instigated by the US, of course. But in any case, I bought more Russia during the Crimea incident, and I'm looking to buy still more.
Unfortunately, what's happening is certainly not good for the United States. It's driving Russia and Asia together, which means we're going to suffer in the long run-the US and Europe. Another of the big four Chinese banks opened a branch in Moscow recently. The Iranians are getting closer to the Russians. The Russians recently finished a railroad into North Korea down to the Port Rason, which is the northernmost ice-free port in Asia. The Russians have put a lot of money into the Trans-Siberian railroad to update it and upgrade it, all of which goes right by China.
Usually, people who do a lot of business together wind up doing other things together, such as fighting wars, but this isn't any kind of immediate development. I don't think the Russians, the Chinese, and the Iranians are about to invade America.
Nick: So because of these economic ties to Asia, the Russians are not as dependent on the West. Is that why you're optimistic about Russia?
Jim: I first went to the Soviet Union in 1966, and I came away very pessimistic. And I was pessimistic for the next 47 years, because I didn't see how it could possibly work.
But then I started noticing, a year or two ago, that now everybody hates Russia-the market is not at all interesting to anybody anymore.
You may remember in the 1990s, and even the first decade of this century, everybody was enthusiastic about Russia. Lots of people had periodic bouts of huge enthusiasm. I was short the ruble in 1998, but other than that, I had never invested in Russia, certainly not on the long side. But a year or two ago I started noticing that things are changing in Russia... something is going on in the Kremlin. They understand they can't just shoot people, confiscate people's assets. They have to play by the rules if they want to develop their economy.
Now Russia has a convertible currency-and most countries don't have convertible currencies, but the Russians do. They have fairly large foreign currency reserves and are building up more assets. Having driven across Russia a couple of times, I know they have vast natural resources. And now that the Trans-Siberian Railway has been rebuilt, it's a huge asset as well.
So I see all these things. I knew the market was depressed, knew nobody liked it, so I started looking for and finding a few investments in Russia.
Nick: Yeah, that definitely seems to make sense when you look at the sentiment and long-term fundamentals. So where do you see the conflict with Ukraine and the tensions with the West going?
Jim: Well, the tensions are going to continue to grow, at least as long as you have the same bureaucrats in Washington. You know, they all have a professional stake in making sure that things
don't calm down in the former Soviet Union-so I don't see things getting better any time soon.
I do notice that some companies and even countries have started pulling back from the sanctions. Many companies and people are starting to say, "Wait a minute, what is all this about?"
People are starting to reexamine the propaganda that comes out of Washington. Even the Germans are starting to reassess the situation. I suspect that things will cool off eventually, because the US doesn't have much support and they've got plenty of other wars they want to fight or are keen to get started.
So Russia will become more and more dominant in Ukraine. The east is more or less Russian. Crimea was always Russian until Khrushchev got drunk one night and gave it away. So I suspect you will see more and more disintegration of Ukraine, which by the way is good for Ukraine and
good for the world.
We don't complain when the Scots have an election as to whether they want to leave the UK or not. People in Spain want to leave. We say we're in favor of self-determination. We let Czechoslovakia break up, Yugoslavia break up, Ethiopia break up. These things are usually good.
Many borders that exist are historic anomalies, and they should break up. Just because something happened after the First World War or Second World War and some bureaucrats drew a border doesn't mean it's logical or should survive.
So I suspect you will see more of eastern Ukraine becoming more and more Russian. I don't see America going to war, I certainly don't see Europe going to war over Ukraine, and so America will just sort of slowly slide away and have to admit another miscalculation.
Nick: I agree. Would you also say that Europe's dependence on Russia for energy limits how far the sanctions can go? There's been speculation that the Europeans are going to cut Russia out
of the SWIFT system, like they did with Iran.
Jim: Well, anything can happen. I noticed SWIFT's reaction when America tried to force them to do that: they were not very happy at all.
I'm an American citizen like you, and unfortunately the bigger picture is forcing the Russians, the Chinese, and others to accelerate in finding an alternative. That is not good for the US.
The Americans have a monopoly, because everyone who uses dollars has to get them cleared through New York. People were already starting to worry in the past few years about the American dominance of the system and its ability to just close everything down.
So now the Russians and Chinese and others are accelerating their efforts to find an alternative to SWIFT and to the American dollar and the dominance of the US financial system.
As I said earlier, none of this is good for the US. We think we're hurting the Russians. We are actually hurting ourselves very badly in the long term.
Nick: I think one area where you can really see this is that the US essentially kicked Russia out of Visa and MasterCard. And what did Russia do? They turned to China UnionPay, which is China's
payment processor.
Jim: We could go on and on. There are things that have happened, and everything is underway now because Putin has told everybody, "Okay, we've got to reexamine our whole way of life that has evolved since the Berlin Wall fell," and that's one of the things. By the way, the Chinese love all of this. It's certainly good for China. It's not good for the US in the end, but it's great for China and some Asian countries, such as Iran.
Nothing we have done has been good for America since this whole thing started-nothing. Everything we've done has been good for the Chinese.
Nick: So why are they doing it?
Jim: You know as well as I do: these are bureaucrats who shouldn't be there in the first place. Power corrupts, and it has.
You look at the beginning of the First World War, the Emperor, who was 85 years old at the time, made nine demands on the Serbians. Serbia met eight of his demands. For whatever reason they couldn't meet the ninth. And so they said, "Okay, that's it... war." And then everybody was at war.
The bureaucrats everywhere piled in with great enthusiasm-great headlines about how the war will be over by Christmas. By the way, whenever wars start, the headlines always say the war will be over by Christmas, at least in Christian nations. But six months after that war started, everybody looked around and said, "What the hell are we doing?" This is madness. Millions of people are being killed. Billions of dollars are being lost. This is not good for anybody. And why did it start? Nobody could even tell you why it started, but unfortunately it went on for four years with massive amounts of destruction, all because a few bureaucrats and an old man couldn't get their acts together. None
of that was necessary. Nearly all wars start like that.
If you examine the beginning of any war, years later you ask, "How did it happen? Why did it happen?" And usually there's not much explanation. The winners write history, so the winners always have a good explanation, but more objective people are usually confused.
Nick: Excellent points that you make, Jim. I want to shift gears a little bit. I know you're a fan of agriculture, and parts of Russia and Ukraine are among the most fertile regions in the world.
Investing there is a nice way to get into agriculture and also Russia at the same time. What do you think about companies and stocks that own and operate farmland in that region?
Jim: Well, historically you're right. Ukraine was one of the major breadbaskets of the world, and some of those vast Russian lands were great breadbaskets at times in history. Communism can and does ruin everything it touches. It ruined Soviet agriculture, but many of those places have great potential and will revive.
I haven't actually gone and examined the soil myself to see that it's still fertile, but I assume it is because you see the production numbers. That part of the world should be and will be great agricultural producers again. It's just a question of when and who.
By the way, I have recently become a director of a large Russian phosphorous/fertilizer company, partly for the reasons you're discussing.
Nick: We were talking about Russia and Iran. I've had the chance to travel to Iran. It has a remarkably vibrant stock market, all things considered. It's not heavily dependent on natural resources. They have consumer goods companies, tech companies, and so forth.
Do you see the potential for Iran to open up anytime soon, maybe a Nixon-goes-to-China moment?
Jim: I bought Iranian shares in 1993, and over the next few years it went up something like 47 times, so it was an astonishing success. I got a lot of my money out, but some of it is still trapped there. I don't know if I could ever find it, but I took so much out it didn't really matter.
Yes, I know that there's an interesting market there. I know there's a vibrant society there. I know huge numbers of Iranians who are under 30, and they want to live a different life. It is changing slowly, but it's in the process.
Part of it, of course, is because the West has characterized them as demons and evil, which makes it harder. I was never very keen on things like that. Throughout history and in my own experience, engagement is usually a better way to change things than ignoring people and forcing
them to close in and get bitter about the outside world.
So I don't particularly approve of our approach or anybody's approach to Iran. I certainly don't approve of old man Khamenei's approach to Iran either. There were mistakes made in the early days on both sides. But that's all changing now. I see great opportunities in Iran. If they don't open to the West, they're going to open to Asia and to Russia.
There are fabulous opportunities in Iran, with over 70 million people, vast assets, lots of entrepreneur-type people, smart people, and educated people. Iran is Persia. Persia was one of the great nations of world history for many centuries.
So it's not as though they were a bunch of backward people sitting over there who can't read or find other people on the map. Persia has enormous potential, and they will develop it again.
Nick: I completely agree, and we're looking at Iran closely, too. If the West doesn't open up to Iran, it's going to lose out to the Chinese and the Russians, who are going to gobble up that opportunity and really eat the Americans' lunch.
Of course with the sanctions, it's pretty much illegal for Americans to invest in Iran right now .
Jim: That wasn't always the case. Years ago, if the investment was less than a certain amount of money, and some other things, there were no problems. I don't know the details of the current law.
Nick: It's difficult to keep up with, because the story is constantly changing.
Jim: Well, that's the brilliance of bureaucrats; they always have something to do. It gives them ongoing job security.
Nick: Exactly.
Nick: Another place we have on our list is Kurdistan.
Jim: The Kurds have been a pretty powerful group of people for a long time. I hope they can pull it together. An independent Kurdistan would be good for Turkey and good for everybody else.
Unfortunately, again, you have all these bureaucrats who don't like change.
I've certainly got it on my radar, and maybe I'll bump into you in Iran, or Russia, or Kurdistan, or who knows where.
Nick: Sounds good Jim, we'll be in touch.
Editor's Note: This was an excerpt from Crisis Speculator , which uncovers the deep-value investment opportunities waiting behind the news that frightens others away.http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c3a_1423708046FlintArrowJim Rogers on Opportunities in Russia &amp; Other Hated MarketsUkraine, Russia, Iran, USA, InvestmentAre you a robot?Wed, 04 Feb 2015 17:17:51 -0500http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=aab_1423087993
YESHUA the MESSIAH AKBARAre you being manipulated?
What is Groupthink?
Groupthink, a term coined by social psychologist Irving Janis (1972), occurs when a group makes faulty decisions because group pressures lead to a deterioration of "mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment" (p. 9). Groups affected by groupthink ignore alternatives and tend to take irrational actions that dehumanize other groups. A group is especially vulnerable to groupthink when its members are similar in background, when the group is insulated from outside opinions, and when there are no clear rules for decision making.
References (also see annotated bibliography of books, articles and websites below )
Janis, Irving L. (1972). Victims of Groupthink. New York: Houghton Mifflin.
Janis, Irving L. (1982). Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes. Second Edition. New York: Houghton Mifflin.
Symptoms of Groupthink
Janis has documented eight symptoms of groupthink:
Illusion of invulnerability -Creates excessive optimism that encourages taking extreme risks. Collective rationalization - Members discount warnings and do not reconsider their assumptions. Belief in inherent morality - Members believe in the rightness of their cause and therefore ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their decisions. Stereotyped views of out-groups - Negative views of "enemy" make effective responses to conflict seem unnecessary. Direct pressure on dissenters - Members are under pressure not to express arguments against any of the group's views. Self-censorship - Doubts and deviations from the perceived group consensus are not expressed. Illusion of unanimity - The majority view and judgments are assumed to be unanimous. Self-appointed 'mindguards' - Members protect the group and the leader from information that is problematic or contradictory to the group's cohesiveness, view, and/or decisions.
When the above symptoms exist in a group that is trying to make a decision, there is a reasonable chance that groupthink will happen, although it is not necessarily so. Groupthink occurs when groups are highly cohesive and when they are under considerable pressure to make a quality decision. When pressures for unanimity seem overwhelming, members are less motivated to realistically appraise the alternative courses of action available to them. These group pressures lead to carelessness and irrational thinking since groups experiencing groupthink fail to consider all alternatives and seek to maintain unanimity. Decisions shaped by groupthink have low probability of achieving successful outcomes.
Examples of Groupthink: Past and Present
Examples of groupthink "fiascoes" studied by Janis include US failures to anticipate the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Bay of Pigs invasion, the escalation of Vietnam war, and the ill-fated hostage rescue in Iran. Current examples of groupthink can be found in the decisions of the Bush administration and Congress to pursue an invasion of Iraq based on a policy of "preemptive use of military force against terrorists and rogue nations". The decision to rush to war in Iraq before a broad-based coalition of allies could be built has placed the US in an unenviable military situation in Iraq that is costly in terms of military deaths and casualties, diplomatic standing in the world, and economically.
Groupthink and the News Media
Knowledge is power and we as citizens and as a nation are becoming less powerful. We face an administration that believes in operating under high levels of secrecy. The American press, especially the television news media, has let down the American people and the American people have allowed this to happen. US television news is geared more toward providing entertainment than information. When one compares the news Americans received about the "war on terrorism" and "war in Iraq" with the news citizens of other countries received, it is easy to see why many Americans were eager to launch an attack on Saddam Hussein while most of the world thought this was not a good idea. The major news networks eagerly voiced almost exclusively the Bush administration's (questionable) justifications for the attack on Iraq and ignored the voices of millions who knew that other ways of addressing the issues were still possible. Furthermore, the rapid pace of CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News opinion programs makes it difficult for viewers to process information in any depth. Americans need a press that serves as a devil's advocate to alleviate the ongoing groupthink concerning the war on terrorism and the invasion of Iraq.
Review the following consequences of groupthink and consider how many of them apply to the Bush administration's handling of the 'war on terrorism' and the issues related to Iraq and Saddam Hussein:
a) incomplete survey of alternatives
b) incomplete survey of objectives
c) failure to examine risks of preferred choice
d) failure to reappraise initially rejected alternatives
e) poor information search
f) selective bias in processing information at hand
g) failure to work out contingency plans
h) low probability of successful outcome
Remedies for Groupthink
Decision experts have determined that groupthink may be prevented by adopting some of the following measures:
a) The leader should assign the role of critical evaluator to each member
b) The leader should avoid stating preferences and expectations at the outset
c) Each member of the group should routinely discuss the groups' deliberations with a trusted associate and report back to the group on the associate's reactions
d) One or more experts should be invited to each meeting on a staggered basis. The outside experts should be encouraged to challenge views of the members.
e) At least one articulate and knowledgeable member should be given the role of devil's advocate (to question assumptions and plans)
f) The leader should make sure that a sizeable block of time is set aside to survey warning signals from rivals; leader and group construct alternative scenarios of rivals' intentions.
Annotated Bibliography
Books
Hart, P. (1994). Government: A study of small groups and policy failure . Baltimore:
The Johns Hopkins University Press
In the first book-length study of groupthink since Janis's work, Paul 't Hart has provided a rigorous and systematic version of this influential theory which opens several new avenues for research. Groupthink in government examines the circumstances most likely to produce or counteract groupthink, and applies the theory to issues such as leadership style, risk taking, accountability, and prevention. 't Hart's elaborate case study of the Iran-Contra scandal demonstrates the continuing relevance of the groupthink theory in the examination of flawed decision making.
Janis, I.L. (1972). Victims of groupthink: A psychological study of foreign policy
decisions and fiascoes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Janis defines groupthink as the psychological drive for consensus at any cost that suppresses disagreement and prevents the appraisal of alternatives in cohesive decision-making groups. In this, the first edition, Janis showed how this phenomenon contributed to some of the major U.S. foreign policy fiascoes of recent decades: the Korean War stalemate, the escalation of the Vietnam War, the failure to be prepared for the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the Bay of Pigs blunder. He also examined cases, such as the handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the formulation of the Marshall Plan, where GROUPTHINK was avoided.
Janis, I.L. (1982). Groupthink: A psychological study of policy decisions and fiascoes.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
In this edition (2nd), Janis applies his hypothesis to the Watergate cover-up, portraying in detail how GROUPTHINK helped to put the participants on a disastrous course and keep them there. In addition, he presents some new ideas on how &amp; why GROUPTHINK occurs, and offers suggestions for avoiding it.
Kowert, P.A. (2002). Groupthink or deadlock: When do leaders learn from their
advisors? Albany: Blackwell Publishing.
This book argues that too much advice can lead to policy deadlock depending on leadership style. The danger of groupthink is now standard fare in leadership training programs and a widely accepted explanation, among political scientists, for policy-making fiascoes. Efforts to avoid groupthink, however, can lead to an even more serious problem-deadlock. Groupthink or Deadlock explores these dual problems in the Eisenhower and Reagan administrations and demonstrates how both presidents were capable of learning and consequently changing their policies, sometimes dramatically, but at the same time doing so in characteristically different ways. Kowert points to the need for leaders to organize their staff in a way that fits their learning and leadership style and allows them to negotiate a path between groupthink and deadlock.
Journal Articles
Ahlfinger, N. R. &amp; Esser, J. K. (2001). Testing the groupthink model: Effects of
promotional leadership and conformity predisposition. Social Behavior &amp;
Personality: An International Journal, 29 (1), 31-42.
This article discusses two hypotheses that were derived from groupthink theory and were tested in a laboratory study which included measures of the full range of symptoms of groupthink, symptoms of a poor decision process, and decision quality. The hypothesis that groups composed of members who were indisposed to conform would be more likely to fall victim to groupthink than groups whose members were no predisposed to conform received no support. It is suggested that groupthink research is hampered by measurement problems.
Esser, J.K. (1998). Alive and well after 25 years: A review of groupthink research.
Organizational Behavior &amp; Human Decision Processes, 73 (2-3), 116-141.
This article provides a summary of empirical research on groupthink theory. Groupthink research, analyses of historical cases of poor group decision making are included, and laboratory tests are reviewed. Results from these two research areas are briefly compared. Theoretical and methodological issues for future groupthink research is identified and discussed.
Fuller, S.R. &amp; Aldag, R.J. (1998). Organizational Tonypandy: Lessons from a quarter
century of the groupthink phenonmenon. Organizational Behavior &amp; Human
Decision Processes, 73 (2-3), 163-184.
In this paper, Fuller and Aldag argue that the quarter-century experience with groupthink represents an unfortunate episode in the history of group problem solving research. There has been remarkably little empirical support for the groupthink phenomenon, and that the phenomenon rests on arguable assumptions, that published critiques of groupthink have generally been ignored by groupthink researchers, and that groupthink is presented as fact in journal articles and textbooks. They see continued advocacy of groupthink as a form of organizational Tonypandy, in which knowledgeable individuals fail to "speak out" against widely accepted, but erroneous beliefs. They explore the nature and causes of the Tonypandy and encourage researchers to cast off the artificial determinism and constraints of the groupthink model, and instead, seek to inform the general group decision making literature.
Kramer, R.M. (1998). Revisiting the Bay of Pigs and Vietnam decisions 25 years later:
How well has the groupthink hyposthesis stood the test of time? Organizational
Behavior &amp; Human Decision Processes, 73 (2-3), 236-271.
This paper explains how in the twenty five years since the groupthink hypothesis was first formulated, new evidence, including recently declassified documents, rich oral histories, and informative memoirs by key participants in these fiasco decisions have become available to scholars. This casts a new light on the decision making process behind both the Bay of Pigs and Vietnam. Much of the new evidence does not support Janis's original characterization of these processes. In particular, it suggests that dysfunctional group dynamics stemming from group members' strivings to maintain group cohesiveness were not as prominent a causal factor in the deliberation process as Janis argued. Viewed in aggregate, this new evidence suggests that the groupthink hypothesis overstates the influence of small group dynamics, while understating the role political considerations played in these decisions.
Hart, P. (1998). Preventing groupthink revisited: Evaluating and reforming groups in
government. Organizational Behavior &amp; Human Decision Processes, 73 (2-3),
306-326.
This article critically examines Janis's recommendations for preventing groupthink in high-level policymaking. It puts forward three models of small group functioning in government, each of which highlights different dimensions of collegial policymaking and distinct criteria for evaluating group performance. Each model also inspires different proposals for groupthink prevention and improvement of group performance in general. The article concludes with an agenda for increasing the policy relevance and practical feasibility of research on political decision groups.
McCauley, C. (1998). Group dynamics in Janis's Theory of groupthink: Backward and
forward. Organizational Behavior &amp; Human Decision Processes, 73 (2-3), 142-
162.
This paper traces groupthink to its theoretical roots in order to suggest how a broader and a more consistent use of research in group dynamics can advance understanding of decision-making problems. In particular, the paper explores and reinterprets the groupthink prediction that poor decision- making is most likely when group cohesion is based on the personal attractiveness of group members.
Moorhead, G., Neck, C.P. &amp; West, M.S. (1998) The tendency toward defective decision
making within self-managing teams: The relevance of groupthink for the 21 st
century. Organizational Behavior &amp; Human Decision Processes, 73 (2-3), 327-
351.
Groupthink theory has continued relevance to organizations because of the organizational trend toward self-managing work teams. A typology is developed linking the key differentiating characteristics of self-managing teams to groupthink antecedents of group cohesion, structural faults of the organization, and provocative situational context. Building upon this framework, we more specifically examine variables that will impact the occurrence of groupthink within self-managing teams. Implications for the prevention of groupthink in self-managing teams are discussed.
Paulus, P.B. (1998). Developing consensus about groupthink after all these years.
Organizational Behavior &amp; Human Decision Processes, 73 (2-3), 362-374.
In the context of these papers of this special issue, the models of groupthink are evaluated. The major focus is on the basis for its impact and its scientific status. The groupthink perspective is seen as consistent with some other contributions to the group's literature. Interesting parallels between the groupthink and the brainstorming literature are noted. It is conclude that many of the issues raised by the groupthink model are worthy of further examination in a broad-based study of group decision processes.
Peterson, R.S., Owens, R.D., Tetlock, P.E., Fan, E.T. &amp; Martorana, P. (1998). Group
dynamics in the top management teams: Groupthink, vigilance, and alternative
models of organizational failure and success. Organizational Behavior &amp; Human
Decision Processes, 73 (2-3), 272-305.
This study explored the heuristic value of Janis' (1982) groupthink and vigilant decision-making models as explanations of failure and success in top management team decision making using the Organizational Group Dynamics Q-sort (GDQ). Top management teams of seven Fortune 500 companies were examined at two historical junctures-one when the team was successful (defined as satisfying strategic constituencies) and one when the team was unsuccessful. Results strongly supported the notion that a group's decision-making process is systematically related to the outcomes experienced by the team. The results illustrate the usefulness of the GDQ for developing and empirically testing theory in organizational behavior from historical cases.
Raven, B.H. (1998). Groupthink, Bay of Pigs, and Watergate reconsidered.
Organizational Behavior &amp; Human Decision Processes, 73 (2-3), 352-361.
In this paper, Raven argues that group decisions have often been seen as offering the benefits of collective wisdom, but may also lead to disastrous consequences. Groupthink then focuses on the negative effects of erroneous group decisions, the two major examples being the disastrous Bay of Pigs, which then led to the Watergate scandal. While Janis seems to suggest that groupthink will ultimately lead the group to fail in its ultimate endeavors, we need to consider the frightening possibility that in the case of the Nixon group, the group actions came close to being successful.
Schwartz, J. &amp; Wald, M. L. (2003, March 03). Smart people working collectively can be
dumber than the sum of their brains: "Groupthink"is 30 years old, and still going
strong. NY Times. Retrieved February 20, 2004, from Ebsco database.
This issue came into sharp focus in Houston in 2003 at the first public hearing of the board investigating the Columbia disaster last month. Reprinted at: http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2003/Smart-People-Dumber9mar03.htm.
Street, M. D. &amp; Anthony, W. P. (1997). A conceptual framework establishing the
relationship between groupthink and escalating commitment. Small Group
Research, 28 (2), 267-294.
This article presents three propositions designed to demonstrate a theoretical relationship between the groupthink and escalation commitment models. Proposition that groups exhibiting groupthink characteristics are more likely to escalate commitment to a losing course of action than are groups not exhibiting groupthink characteristics.
Turner, M. E. &amp; Pratkanis, A. R. (1998). Twenty-five years of groupthink theory and
research: Lessons from the evaluation of a theory . Organizational Behavior &amp;
Human Decision Processes, 73 (2-3), 105-115. Retrieved January 20, 2004, from
Ebsco database.
This is from a special issue on theoretical perspectives of groupthink, a twenty-fifth anniversary appraisal. The article examines the historical development of the groupthink model of decision-making processes and discusses recent responses to the body of empirical evidence amassed on the model. The article concludes by articulating general lessons implied by the evolution of research on the groupthink model.
Whyte, G. (1998). Recasting Janis's groupthink model: The key role of collective
efficacy in decision fiascoes. Organizational Behavior &amp; Human Decision
Processes, 73 (2-3), 185-209.
This paper advances an explanation for decision fiascoes that reflects recent theoretical trends and was developed in response to a growing body of research that has failed to substantiate the groupthink model (Janis, 1982). In this new framework, the lack of vigilance and preference for risk that characterizes groups contaminated by groupthink are attributed in large part to perceptions of collective efficacy that unduly exceed capability. High collective efficacy may also contribute to the negative framing of decisions and to certain administrative and structural organizational faults. In the making of critical decisions, these factors induce a preference for risk and a powerful concurrence seeking tendency that, facilitated by group polarization, crystallize around a decision option that is likely to fail. Implications for research and some evidence in support of this approach to the groupthink phenomenon are also discussed.
Web Sites
Groupthink Central: http://www.groupthinkcentral.blogspot.com/
This website is for groupthink central, and has the following quote by Walter Reuther. "There is no greater calling than to serve your fellow men. There is no greater contribution than to help the weak. There is no greater satisfaction than to have done it well." --
A First Look at Communication Theory: http://www.afirstlook.com/main.htm
This website is primarily designed as a companion to communication theory by Em Griffin and the Instructor's Manual by Glen McClish, and Jacqueline Bacon. This site includes links to resource materials for texts, and a description of Conversations with communication theorists, a video of the interviews conducted with the authors of a number of theories featured in the book. Links to theories in the current (5th) edition can be found, as well as theories in the archives of past editions.
Chapter 18 by Irving Janis, in the book A First Look at Communication Theory (1997), by Em Griffin http://www.afirstlook.com/archive/groupthink.cfm?source=archther..
In this chapter, Janis discusses the events behind the Challenger disaster, as a model of defective decision-making. He describes the mode of thinking and how people in a cohesive group have a tendency to seek concurrence with others in the group to finalize their decisions. The chapter outlines the eight symptoms of groupthink, and offers a critique on avoiding uncritical acceptance of groupthink.
Errors and Accidents: Groupthink http://www.ess.ntu.ac.uk/miller/error/groupthink.htm#linking.
This BSc Psychology website developed by Hugh Miller and Bill Farnsworth at the Nottingham Trent University offers chapters on Groupthink by Irving Janis and others.http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=aab_1423087993YESHUA the MESSIAH AKBARAre you a robot?mind meld, nationalism is idolatry, ffree your mind,sos,wtf.The Global De-dollarization and the US PoliciesMon, 02 Feb 2015 15:06:24 -0500http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=225_1422907421
pest-control&gt;&gt;
In its quest for world domination, which the White House has been pursuing for more than a century, it relied on two primary tools: the US dollar and military might. In order to prevent Washington from establishing complete global hegemony, certain countries have recently been revising their positions towards these two elements by developing alternative military alliances and by breaking with their dependence on the US dollar.
Until the mid-twentieth century, the gold standard was the dominant monetary system, based on a fixed quantity of gold reserves stocked in national banks, which limited lending. At that time, the United States managed to become the owner of 70% of world's gold reserves (excluding the USSR), therefore it pushed its weakened competitor, the UK, aside resulting to the creation of the Bretton Woods financial system in 1944. That's how the US dollar became the predominant currency for international payments.
But a quarter century later this system had proven ineffective due to its inability to contain the economic growth of Germany and Japan, along with the reluctance of the US to adjust its economic policies to maintain the dollar-gold balance. At that time, the dollar experienced a dramatic decline but it was saved by the support of rich oil exporters, especially once Saudi Arabia began to exchange its black gold for US weapons and support in talks with Richard Nixon. As a result, President Richard Nixon in 1971 unilaterally ordered the cancellation of the direct convertibility of the United States dollar to gold, and instead he established the Jamaican currency system in which oil has become the foundation of the US dollar system. Therefore, it's no coincidence that from that moment on the control over oil trade has become the number one priority of Washington's foreign policy. In the aftermath of the so-called Nixon Shock the number of US military engagements in the Middle East and other oil producing regions saw a sharp increase. Once this system was supported by OPEC members, the global demand for US petrodollars hit an all time high. Petrodollars became the basis for America domination over the global financial system which resulted in countries being forced to buy dollars in order to get oil on the international market.
Analysts believe that the share of the United States in today's world gross domestic product shouldn't exceed 22%. However, 80% of international payments are made with US dollars. As a result, the value of the US dollar is exceedingly high in comparison with other currencies, that's why consumers in the United States receive imported goods at extremely low prices. It provides the United States with significant financial profit, while high demand for dollars in the world allows the US government to refinance its debt at very low interest rates.
Under these circumstances, those heding against the dollar are considered a direct threat to US economic hegemony and the high living standards of its citizens, and therefore political and business circles in Washington attempt by all means to resist this process.This resistance manifested itself in the overthrow and the brutal murder of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who decided to switch to Euros for oil payments, before introducing a gold dinar to replace the European currency.
However, in recent years, despite Washington's desire to use whatever means to sustain its position within the international arena, US policies are increasingly faced with opposition. As a result, a growing number of countries are trying to move from the US dollar along with its dependence on the United States, by pursuing a policy of de-dollarization. Three states that are particularly active in this domain are China, Russia and Iran. These countries are trying to achieve de-dollarization at a record pace, along with some European banks and energy companies that are operating within their borders.
The Russian government held a meeting on de-dollarization in spring of 2014, where the Ministry of Finance announced the plan to increase the share of ruble-denominated contracts and the consequent abandonment of dollar exchange. Last May at the Shanghai summit, the Russian delegation manged to sign the so-called "deal of the century" which implies that over the next 30 years China will buy $ 400 billion worth of Russia's natural gas, while paying in rubles and yuans. In addition, in August 2014 a subsidiary company of Gazprom announced its readiness to accept payment for 80,000 tons of oil from Arctic deposits in rubles that were to be shipped to Europe, while the payment for the supply of oil through the "Eastern Siberia - Pacific Ocean" pipeline can be transferred in yuans. Last August while visiting the Crimea, Russia's President Vladimir Putin announced that "the petrodollar system should become history" while "Russia is discussing the use of national currencies in mutual settlements with a number of countries." These steps recently taken by Russia are the real reasons behind the West's sanction policy.
In recent months, China has also become an active member of this "anti-dollar" campaign, since it has signed agreements with Canada and Qatar on national currencies exchange, which resulted in Canada becoming the first offshore hub for the yuan in North America. This fact alone can potentially double or even triple the volume of trade between the two countries since the volume of the swap agreement signed between China and Canada is estimated to be a total of 200 billion yuans.
China's agreement with Qatar on direct currency swaps between the two countries are the equivalent of $ 5.7 billion and has cast a heavy blow to the petrodollar becoming the basis for the usage of the yuan in Middle East markets. It is no secret that the oil-producing countries of the Middle Eastern region have little trust in the US dollar due to the export of inflation, so one should expect other OPEC countries to sign agreements with China.
As for the Southeast Asia region, the establishment of a clearing center in Kuala Lumpur, which will promote greater use of the yuan locally, has become yet another major step that was made by China in the region. This event occurred in less than a month after the leading financial center of Asia - Singapore - became a center of the yuan exchange in Southeast Asia after establishing direct dialogue regarding the Singapore dollar and the yuan.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has recently announced its reluctance to use US dollars in its foreign trade. Additionally, the President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev has recently tasked the National Bank with the de-dollarization of the national economy.
All across the world, the calls for the creation of a new international monetary system are getting louder with each passing day. In this context it should be noted that the UK government plans to release debts denominated in yuans while the European Central Bank is discussing the possibility of including the yuan in its official reserves.
Those trends are to be seen everywhere, but in the midst of anti-Russian propaganda, Western newsmakers prefer to keep quiet about these facts, in particular, when inflation is skyrocketing in the United States. In recent months, the proportion of US Treasury bonds in the Russian foreign exchange reserves has been shrinking rapidly, being sold at a record pace, while this same tactic has been used by a number of different states.
To make matters worse for the US, many countries seek to export their gold reserves from the United States, which are deposited in vaults at the Federal Reserve Bank. After a scandal of 2013, when the US Federal Reserve refused to return German gold reserves to its respective owner, the Netherlands have joined the list of countries that are trying to retrieve their gold from the US. Should it be successful the list of countries seeking the return of gold reserves will double which may result in a major crisis for Washington.
The above stated facts indicate that the world does not want to rely on US dollars anymore. In these circumstances, Washington relies on the policy of deepening regional destabilization, which, according to the White House strategy, must lead to a considerable weakening of any potential US rivals. But there's little to no hope for the United States to survive its own wave of chaos it has unleashed across the world.
Vladimir Odintsov, political commentator, exclusively for the online magazine " New Eastern Outlook "http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=225_1422907421pest-controlThe Global De-dollarization and the US PoliciesBye Bye Petrodollar :)Ferguson Mayor Reveals Email Showing MO Governor <span class="highlight">Nixon</span> Ordered National Guard OUT OF FergusonFri, 23 Jan 2015 01:10:16 -0500http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=15f_1421993270
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